


What Are You Doing Here?

by Marathon_Zack_140_6



Series: What Are You Doing Here, Miss Granger? [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Dating, Developing Relationship, F/M, Molly Weasley Bashing, Pre-Relationship, Ron Weasley Bashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:53:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 24
Words: 62,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marathon_Zack_140_6/pseuds/Marathon_Zack_140_6
Summary: What if Harry had insisted Hermione stay in the champions tent with him before the First Task of the TriWizard Tournament?Starts from the beginning of the GoF movie scene where Dumbledore notices Hermione in the champions tent with Harry before the First Task, but she doesn't leave like in the movie. After that the story's book based. Harry/Hermione friendship to start, developing into a relationship by mid-way through -- but strongly Harmony the whole way.Majorly Expanded and Rewritten version of my previous story by the similar name.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Series: What Are You Doing Here, Miss Granger? [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2035864
Comments: 99
Kudos: 369





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expanded from its former masterpiece of 10k words and one chapter to 60k words and 24 chapters. I’ve left the original story up (Part 1 of this series, should anyone be interested in seeing the original), since this one is different enough that they’re essentially two separate stories now. But if much of this seems familiar, it’s because it is — but it’s not plagiarism if it’s my own story, right? ;)

Harry James Potter was nervously pacing back and forth across the far end of the Champions tent.

It was mere minutes before the first task of the famed TriWizard Tournament was supposed to start, but he was anything but eager to get it underway. The three champions were similarly nervous, but Harry had barely even noticed this when he’d walked in due to his own nervous state, and certainly wasn’t paying them any attention now, nor were they paying him any attention, or each other any attention, all four of them lost in their own worlds.

But as Harry paced across the long side of the tent, he noticed a slight shadow fall across the side of the tent, and the fabric ripple slightly. Moving towards it, he heard a distinctly feminine " _Psst_ ”, so he moved right next to the fabric separating the competitors from the outside world, to see what the only person who would think to come visit him before his rapidly approaching demise wanted.

" _Psst_ ," came the voice again, quiet enough that the other three champions hadn't seemed to have noticed it, before it whispered, “ _Harry?_ Is that you?"

"Yeah," replied Harry in an equal whisper.

"How are you feeling? Okay?" came the voice of his best (and since his name had come out of the goblet, seemingly only) friend. When he didn’t say anything, after a second she continued on, "The key is to concentrate. After that you just have to —"

"Battle a dragon," Harry finished for her.

There was a pregnant pause, before Harry suddenly found himself being engulfed in a mighty hug, as Hermione burst through the opening in the tent wall and launched herself onto to him. Staggering a step backwards to keep his balance, Harry wrapped his arms around her tightly, returning her hug gratefully.

Hermione had been the only one to believe him when he said he hadn't put his name in the Goblet of Fire, for which he knew he would be forever grateful. And beyond just believing him when no one else would, she'd also helped him perfect _Accio_ , the Summoning Charm, once he'd told her about needing to summon his Firebolt for the first task against the dragon.

But suddenly, their bubble was rudely burst by the flash of a camera lightbulb.

"Young love," cooed Rita, strutting into the tent. "Oh, how—" Here she pause for a second, clearly contemplating the best word to describe the situation.

"Stirring," she finished with great finality, before continuing, "If everything goes unfortunately today, you two may even make the front page."

Hermione had a nasty suspicion that "unfortunately" to Rita would mean that none of the champions or Harry had sustained a nasty injured in the upcoming task, but before she could do anything more than glare at the 'journalist', Krum spoke up for the first time since Harry had entered the tent.

"You have no business here. This tent is for champions. And friends."

Rita looked mildly offended that no one considered her a friend, but she covered it well, and answered, "Well. No matter. We've got what we wanted," before swaying back towards the door of the tent.

But before she'd made it all the way to the door, the judges and Filch entered the tent from behind where Harry and Hermione were standing, drawing everyone’s attention away from her, so she slipped into the corner to watch.

"Good day, Champions. Gather round, please," boomed out Dumbledore's voice as he entered. The three champions quickly hurried over to where the adults were, as Harry and Hermione shifted to the side slightly so Dumbledore could have center stage. Harry and Hermione's hands instinctively found their way into each other, and Hermione's other hand grasped his arm protectively.

"Now you've waited. You've wondered. At last the moment has arrived. The moment only four of you can fully appreciate."

Dumbledore looked around at the four students, and with a double take, realized that there were in fact actually _five_ students standing around him, not four. So taking another look to see who the extra student was, he quickly recognized her as being none other than Hermione Granger, the brightest witch of their generation.

"What are you doing here, Miss Granger?” the Headmaster asked in a puzzled tone, clearly confused at her presence, looking around to see if anyone else knew why she was there. As no one seemed to, he looked back around at the young witch.

"Oh, sorry…" Hermione stuttered, before Harry squeezed her hand a little bit tighter and said, "She's here with me, Professor. She wanted to wish me 'Good luck'."

"Oh," replied Dumbledore, still looking flummoxed. But when it became clear after a few seconds that Miss Granger wasn’t leaving, he continued on, turning to Mr Crouch. "Barty. The bag."

Holding out a bag that looked like it was smoking slightly, Mr Crouch gestured to all of the champions. "Champions, in a circle around me. Miss Delacour over here. Mr Krum. Potter and — _you_ " — here he looked at Hermione, clearly not having paid the slightest bit of attention to what Dumbledore had just called her — "over here." Having shuffled everyone around to where he wanted them, he continued, "Right. Miss Delacour, if you will…"

Soon all four competitors had selected their dragon, Mr Crouch had explained the objective of the task, and the adults had left the tent to return to the stands, leaving the competitors (and friend) alone once more. As Cedric headed out of the tent first to face his dragon, Harry and Hermione drifted back into the furthest corner of the tent, while the remaining two champions returned to their own corners, resuming mentally preparing themselves for the monstrous task they would soon be faced with.

"Thanks for coming," said Harry quietly as soon as everyone but the remaining two champions had left the tent.

"Of course, Harry!" replied Hermione distraughtly, still grasping Harry's arm tightly. "This is completely mad, having students face dragons! And without any of you having a clue, if they’d had their way!”

Harry agreed with her completely, but didn’t say anything out loud, too afraid that if he tried to actually say anything, he might be sick. Hermione completely understood though, barely keeping it together herself. One by one the remaining two champions left the tent to face their dragons when their names were called out, eventually leaving Harry and Hermione all alone in the tent, counting down the minutes until the inevitable. The entire time, Hermione kept a tight grasp on Harry's hand and arm, neither of them saying anything to each other, both lost in their own thoughts.

Finally, however, Dumbledore called for Harry to enter the enclosure to face the Hungarian Horntail, and Hermione had to let him go.

Turning towards her, Harry held out his hand that wasn’t still being grasped by hers, the miniature dragon sitting in the middle of it, and said with more confidence than he actually felt at the moment, “Here — hold onto this for me until I get back."

Hermione nodded silently, trying to fight back her tears, and finally let go of his hand to hold it out to let the miniature dragon flutter from his hand to hers.

"See you soon," said Harry in what he hoped was a reassuring tone, before turning and heading towards the door of the tent that led to the enclosure.

Hermione turned and ran towards the stands, wiping the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand as she hurried to join the rest of the Gryffindors in watching Harry face his dragon.

"Where have you been?" demanded Ron irritably as Hermione appeared next to him, right as Harry stepped into the enclosure.

"Being there for my friend," replied Hermione shortly, stuffing the miniature dragon out of sight in her robes.

Then she deliberately turned towards the enclosure, resolutely ignoring the redhead.

~HP~

Several nerve-wracking minutes later, Harry stood outside the enclosure, golden egg raised in one hand, Firebolt in the other.

As Professor McGonagall and some of the other professors hurried towards him from one side, a bushy mane of brown hair came flying at him from the other. Not seeing her coming, this time he _was_ knocked down when she launched herself onto him, squealing acclamations in such a high-pitched voice that he couldn't make out what she was trying to say, although he thought he caught the words "Harry" and “remarkable” repeated multiple times.

But he did hear Professor McGonagall’s slightly less stern than normal voice say, "That was brilliant, Potter,” so he pushed the bushy hair obscuring his vision out of the way to see the Transfiguration teacher and their Head of House standing over him, looking down at the two of them. Surprisingly, she seemed more amused by the fact Hermione was laying on top of him hugging him, than disapproving.

"You'll need to get that scratch checked out by Madam Pomfrey right away," she added, pointing at the scrape on his shoulder that he'd sustained from the dragon's tail.

“Yes, Professor," he replied, trying to nudge Hermione up and off of him so that he could stand.

Getting the message, and having heard Professor McGonagall tell Harry he needed to go to the medical tent, Hermione quickly scrambled up, before holding out her hand to help Harry stand up after her. Once Harry was standing next to her, and she’d quickly given his shoulder a once-over to make sure he wasn’t seriously hurt, she looked around her for the first time since she’d tackled him, and noticed all the professors standing around them watching them. She ducked her head and blushed, before practically dragging Harry off to the medical tent so they wouldn’t be in the limelight any longer.

Once inside the medial tent, Harry was quickly pounced on by Madam Pomfrey, who was muttering up a storm about dementors, dragons, and the deranged devils who thought it was a good idea to keep bringing such dangerous creatures onto the school grounds (though not in those exact words). Looking rather pleased that Harry’s scrape was no more than that, a scrape, she quickly cleaned the wound with a purple potion, before poking his shoulder with her wand and making him right as rain.

Sticking her wand back in her robes and grabbing up her bottle of purple goo, she said, "Now, just sit quietly for a minute — sit! And then you can go and get your score.” But as she walked over to the next cubicle to check on Cedric again, they heard her mutter to herself, “Not that anyone’s actually been listening to me, and I doubt _you_ will either!”

But as Harry looked down at where Hermione was standing next to the bench he was sitting on, to see if _she_ was okay with him going ahead and going back out to learn his score, he found himself engulfed in yet another hug, this one just as tight as the first two she’d given him so far that day.

“It’s okay, Hermione — I’m safe and alive,” he muttered into her hair as he hugged her back with one arm.

After a few seconds, Hermione let go of him and leaned back slightly to look up at him, her eyes shining brightly with a mixture of unshed tears and pride. And before he could even open his mouth to ask if he had her permission to leave the tent yet, she said sternly, “No, Mr Potter — you are not leaving this tent until Madam Pomfrey gives you the okay. I don’t care that you’re obviously perfectly fine, and anyways, they aren’t going to give out your scores before you get there.”

Harry gave a token disgruntled sigh, before smiling softly. “Thank you again — for everything,” he said quietly. “The Summoning Charm, coming to the tent and being there for me, being with me now, and just generally being here for me the entire time since my name came out of the goblet.”

“Always, Harry,” replied Hermione softly, leaning her head gently against his newly healed shoulder.

A few minutes later Madam Pomfrey returned, looking rather surprised that her patient was still there, and hadn’t left against her express wishes like the other three had at least once apiece since they’d respectively finished their tasks and been sent to her for healing. A quick look at Harry’s shoulder and she told him he was good to go, mouthing a quick ’Thank you’ to Hermione behind Harry’s back as he started walking out. Hermione gave the older woman a quick nod and smirk before running to catch up with Harry, walking out of the tent by his side.

As they exited the tent, Hermione spotted Ron lurking off to the side, looking highly disgruntled at all of the people congratulating Harry as he walked over to the edge of the enclosure to receive his scores, and seeming to glare specifically at her as soon as he saw her. She assumed this had to do with her leaving him to go be with Harry before the task, pointedly ignoring him the entire time Harry was trying to get past his dragon, and running to enthusiastically congratulate Harry once he’d safely finished the task, as well as for simply believing Harry when he said he didn’t enter himself in the tournament, something the redhead clearly still did not believe. But she mentioned none of this to Harry, instead just standing faithfully by his side as he watched his scores slowly be revealed by the five judges.

Once they’d all been revealed and he’d tied for first place with Krum, three-quarters of the Hogwarts stands erupted in jubilation. Slytherin, of course, did no such thing, but as he found out from Neville later, the only competitor they _had_ cheered for at all was the Durmstrang champion, Viktor Krum, so it wasn’t _just_ him they’d refused to act like civilized human beings for. Not that Harry cared either way, as Slytherin was Slytherin, while _he_ was tied for first place in the world-famous TriWizard Tournament he was three years too young to compete in.

The scores of all four competitors finally having been given, Bagman called them all back into the tent to give them a few quick words about the upcoming second task, and what they needed to know to prepare for it. By the time he let them go, the stands had completely emptied and were waiting eagerly for the champions (and Harry) to return, bursting into a hearty round of applause as soon as the four of them (plus Hermione, who’d resolutely stayed by Harry's side the whole time) exited the tent, free at last. Everyone crowded around them, congratulating them, patting them on the back, and with Harry telling him that they'd always believed in him and that he was going to win the tournament for sure. In the midst of the celebrations, Cedric edged his way over to Harry to offer him his own congratulations that he hadn’t had the chance to while listening to Bagman talk about the second task.

"That was an impressive bit of flying, Harry. I got Madam Pomfrey to let me watch from the medical tent," he said as he shook Harry's hand, before adding quietly, "And thanks, you know, about the dragons and everything.”

Harry nodded, saying, “Of course. And I heard you did pretty well yourself.”

Eventually Harry and Hermione waded their way through the crowds and up to the seventh floor corridor outside the Gryffindor common room, eager to relax for a while before heading down to supper once the crowds had hopefully thinned slightly. But as they stepped their way through the portrait hole, Ron brushed by them brusquely in the opposite direction heading towards the Great Hall in search of food, saying loudly, "I'm glad _I_ didn't enter the tournament," as he knocked into Harry's shoulder. "I wouldn't want to be facing dragons, even if it _was_ for eternal glory.”

And with that he was out the portrait hole and gone.

"Does he really still think I would have entered myself to face dragons?" asked Harry in disbelief as he and Hermione collapsed onto the couch in front of the fireplace several seconds later.

"But you didn't know there _were_ dragons when entrance was open, Harry," explained Hermione patiently, rubbing his arm soothingly. "Both of you wanted to be in the tournament back when you didn't know what any of the tasks were — same as _half_ the school that was too young to enter did. And just like all of them, both of you _would_ have entered had it been allowed. So just because he's realized now that he’s actually seen the first task that he really _doesn't_ want to be in this tournament, that isn't going to change his belief on whether you entered yourself or not. And to be perfectly honest, whatever he may say, if he had the chance to enter right now, I still think he would — just for the attention, and if he could, a chance at all the money the winner will get."

"But what about the rest of the school? _They_ don't still think I entered myself! So why would _he_!?” exclaimed Harry, still not understanding his first friend’s thought process.

"I'm not so sure that's really true, though, Harry,” answered Hermione gently. "The difference is, after watching you defeat a dragon, the rest of the school just no longer _cares_ whether you entered yourself or not. If we’re being honest, I think most of them actually _do_ still believe that you entered your own name, but you did such a good job that they're willing to support you now even though you did enter yourself." At Harry's glare she hurriedly added with an eyeroll, "Which I know you didn't really of course."

Harry sank back into the cushions of the couch, both physically and mentally exhausted from all the stress leading up to the first task, and his flight with the dragon during it — he made a quick mental note to never go flying with a dragon again.

Mistaking his sigh of exhaustion for one of anxiousness about his former best friend, Hermione said cautiously, "Give Ron time, but as long as he still believes that you entered your own name, and you keep getting all the attention — _which I know you don't want_ — I don't know how you two are going to become friends again."

Harry nodded, knowing what she said to be true, but he found himself less worried about it than he thought he would be. He realized that the only person he really needed was already right by his side, both figuratively and literally at the moment, and always had been. Even during their minor squabble at Christmas the year before over the source of one of his gifts, she had been more by his side than even he himself had been.

But Harry was suddenly broken out of these thoughts by Hermione exclaiming, “Oh — I nearly forgot!"

She quickly rummaged through her robes for a second, before pulling out the miniature Hungarian Horntail he'd given her in the Champions Tent for safe keeping.

"I believe this is yours.”


	2. Chapter 2

Later that evening, Harry and Hermione climbed the long circular staircase to the top of the Owlery Tower.

After she had returned Harry’s pet miniature Hungarian Horntail to him, Hermione had pulled a piece of parchment and a self-inking quill out from inside her robes, to write Sirius a letter to let him know that Harry had safely made it through the first task, along with everything else that had happened regarding the tournament. When Harry had seen what she was doing, he had wanted to wait until at least after supper to write it, but Hermione had insisted they do it then. She promised that she would write the whole thing herself, and all he had to do was help her on any details she didn’t already know and throw in any extra bits he wanted her to include that she hadn’t thought of already, and then sign his name at the end next to hers so Sirius would know it really was from him as well — and she would do everything else.

She really wanted the letter to reach Sirius before Rita could publish any article of lies, deceit, and misinformation in the Daily Prophet, and Sirius find out what had happened in the tournament that way first when he indubitably nicked a copy to read. And she knew if they didn’t write it until that night that they wouldn’t get it sent off until the morning, which might be too late depending on when Rita’s story came out.

And true to her word, Hermione had written the entire thing herself, reading it out loud as she had written it so Harry could hear everything she was writing, while Harry had remained an exhausted heap next to her, doing his best impersonation of a couch cushion. He had wanted to give a blow-by-blow account of exactly how he had swerved, circled, and dodged the Horntail, but Hermione had vetoed that, keeping the letter on task with more important things like how Mad-Eye had been the one to suggest the Summoning Charm and Firebolt that Harry had used for the task, exactly what it was they’d had to do in the first task as all Harry had been able to tell Sirius before was that it was going to involve dragons, that the golden egg he'd had to steal was somehow crucial to the second task, and that they hadn’t seen anyone looking particularly suspicious around the task, like they might have been the one to enter Harry and were watching to see if he was fatally wounded, be it Karkaroff or anyone else. Once she had finished, and reread the letter out loud for both herself and Harry to make sure it sounded good, she sealed it up and stuck it back in her robes with the quill, before dragging Harry up off the couch so they could head down to the Great Hall for supper, now that it had been long enough for the crowds to have had time to thin out some from the onslaught immediately after the first task finished.

But they had since finished eating, and were now climbing up to the owlery to send the letter off. Arriving at the very top, Hermione selected one of the school owls so as not to continuously be sending Hedwig to the same location should anyone be watching, and tied the letter to its leg. Then she carried it to the window, where it took off into the dark sky to find the elusive fugitive.

Harry and Hermione stared out the window at the stars for a while enjoying the beautiful late-November evening, before Hermione finally said, “I heard the twins mention something about a surprise party for you in the common room for completing the first task so magnificently. We should probably head back down there, and not keep them waiting.”

“For completing it so magnificently, or for not dying and making it too awkward to have a party?” smirked Harry as he pushed himself off the wall and towards the stairs.

“To-may-to, to-mah-to,” Hermione smirked back as she followed him. “But who are we to deny them the opportunity to celebrate?”

~HP~

When they stepped through the portrait hole ten minutes later, the Gryffindor common room erupted in the same explosion the entire stands had when Harry had successfully robbed the nesting mother dragon of her adopted egg earlier that afternoon.

Everyone crowded around Harry to congratulate him yet again on his performance, but eventually he was able to make his way back to Hermione as everyone moved on to enjoying the mountains of food and drinks the twins had provided. Despite having just had supper not long before, Harry and Hermione filled up plates with all the desserts and snacks the twins had provided, and enjoyed themselves as they watched everyone celebrate Harry’s success.

After a while, the twins circled around to Harry and Hermione and asked, “So where’s the egg, and what’s the clue inside you have to work out for the second task?”

Hermione had no idea how they knew that there was a clue for the second task inside the egg, as only the champions, Harry, and she herself had been told that by Bagman in the tent after the first task was over, but somehow they clearly did. Harry reached under the couch he and Hermione had settled on, the same one they’d collapsed on after returning from the first task, and pulled the egg out from under it where he’d stowed it for safe keeping when they’d headed down to supper.

Everyone in the room turned to look at them, and Lee Jordan said, "Open it, Harry, go on! Let's just see what’s inside it!"

As several more people in the room echoed, "Yeah, go on, Harry, open it!”, Harry glanced over at Hermione, who nodded back. After all, while the rules Mr. Crouch had given them at the beginning of the tournament _hadn’t_ said they couldn’t ask other students for help, only that they couldn’t ask for or accept help from teachers, it _had_ kind of been implied. But if Hermione thought it was okay, he was okay with it too. So at her permission, he prised open the egg.

The most horrible wail Harry had ever heard came out, and he slammed it back shut.

But to his great disappointment, in the echoing silence that followed, nobody was able to give him any clue as to what on earth that sound might be. Many theories, ranging from reasonable to completely outlandish, were tossed about, but none of them seemed like the actual answer to the second task, and so Harry was left with even more questions than he’d had _before_ he’d opened the egg to find out the clue. Speculating on the egg could only hold everyone’s attention for so long, though, and soon everyone began milling around again just enjoying the party and company.

After a while, one of Hermione’s curiosities from the past three years got the best of her, and she approached the twins.

“So how _do_ you get all this food?” she asked curiously. “You throw parties all the time, and practically have more food than the Great Hall, but where does it all come from?”

“The food and normal drinks we get from the house elves down in the kitchens,” answered Fred.

“And the butterbeers and anything stronger we keep a secret stash of that we replenish from time to time through the secret passageway to Hogsmeade,” continued George.

“That takes some effort, but the house elves are happy to give us anything we ask for that they have in the kitchens,” added Fred.

“Even give it to us in a bag that’s smaller on the outside and has a lightening charm on it so we can easily bring it back up here without any of the teachers noticing,” finished George.

“How do you get down there?” asked Hermione. “And do they give out food at any time, or only during specific hours, like meal times?”

“There’s a concealed door behind a painting of a bowl of fruit on the basement corridor before you get to the Hufflepuff common room,” answered George. "Just tickle the pear, and it giggles and turns into a large green door handle."

“And we’ve never actually tried during meal times, but I assume they’d give you food then, too,” added Fred. “But they’ve always just given us as much as we could want every time we’ve gone down there, whenever it is."

“But why do you want to know?” asked George suspiciously.

“Cause we’ve heard rumors you’re trying to free house elves,” added Fred.

Fred and George had a point, and Hermione knew it. She’d reacted a little hastily when she’d first found out that Hogwarts had house elves, without having done any research first to find out whether her preconceived notions were actually true or not. The only house elves she’d ever known of before then were Dobby and Winky, and everything Harry had told her about Dobby had sounded terrible and Mr Crouch had treated Winky badly the one day she’d seen Winky, and so she had automatically assumed all house elves must be treated like that without any proof that that was actually true.

But then she’d taken a minute, and did what she always did any time she was faced with a problem or something she didn’t know — she went to the library. Unfortunately, the library hadn’t exactly been as helpful as she’d hoped, it being rather hard to find anything in there at all on house elves, and what she _had_ found had been rather contradictory. But she’d eventually come to the conclusion that not all house elves were treated like Dobby and Wink had been, and that her assumption that the Hogwarts house elves, and house elves in general, were treated that poorly, had been a rather hasty judgment on her part. And now having learned as much as the library could offer her, the only way she could really find out what a house elf’s life was like was to actually find and talk to some.

So this was her chance, her chance to actually go talk to the Hogwarts house elves, and see how they felt about their position and treatment. After all, she wanted to really see what it was like being a house elf before she judged Hogwarts for having them — she wasn’t a bigot after all.

“I just want to go talk to them,” Hermione replied to the twins. “I’m only interested in freeing the ones mistreated like Dobby was by the Malfoys and Winky was by Mr Crouch. So as long as Hogwarts doesn’t treat theirs like slaves, then we should get along just fine.”

The twins seemed satisfied by her answer, as they didn’t say anything more, and went off to offer a Canary Cream to an unsuspecting Neville.

It wasn’t until one in the morning that Harry and Hermione finally left the party and parted ways at the staircases up to the guys and girls dorms with one last hug for the day. As Harry climbed the staircase to the very top of the tower and his warm, awaiting bed, he realized that he hadn’t seen Ron all party, or even since the redhead had knocked into him leaving the common room as he and Hermione had entered following the first task. But when Harry pushed open the door to his dorm room, he had a sudden feeling of déjà vu from the night his name had come out of the goblet.

Ron was lying on his bed fully dressed, clearly having been waiting for Harry to arrive from the party below.

“Congratulations. Enjoying yourself, I see,” said the redhead as soon as he saw Harry.

Like before, his tone was the complete opposite of his words.

Not interested in a fight at the moment, and really just wanting to go to bed, Harry said firmly, “Like I told you the night my name came out, I didn’t enter myself, nor did I have anyone enter me. And I’m just trying to survive now that I have been entered.” Then after a pause, he couldn’t help himself and added, “And by the way, just how exactly was the invisibility cloak supposed to help me get past an age line? That doesn’t even make any bloody sense — it was an _age_ line, not some guard I would have had to sneak past.”

Then he turned his back on the redhead and headed into the bathroom to get ready for bed, really wishing he had his invisibility cloak with him at the moment to get back from the bathroom to his bed without having to face Ron again. Fortunately, however, Ron had apparently decided Harry was still too thick-skulled to talk with and had wrenched closed the hangings of his bed while Harry was in the bathroom, enabling Harry to make it to bed without any further confrontations, for which he was very thankful.


	3. Chapter 3

The following afternoon, after their final class of the day, Hermione pulled Harry down to the kitchens with her to meet the Hogwarts house elves.

Arriving at the portrait the twins had told her about, she tickled the pear, causing it to turn into the door handle she needed. Opening the door, she and Harry stepped inside, taking in the enormous, high-ceilinged room. It was a prefect replica of the Great Hall above it, only with mounds of glittering brass pots and pans covering the walls, a great brick fireplace at the far end, and house elves bustling about cooking and carrying food and drinks to the four long tables that sat directly beneath the tables in the Great Hall above, and apparently magically transferred the food up to said corresponding tables.

They had barely had time to look around and take it all in before house elves were bustling up to them offering them trays of food and drinks, and asking them what they could get them. Then as Hermione tried to explain that they didn’t want anything and were just there to talk (not helped by Harry taking a chocolate eclair one of the house elves offered and a flagon of pumpkin juice offered by another), there was a loud squeal from the other side of the room, and one of the house elves dashed across the room and threw themselves at Harry, hugging him nearly as tightly as Hermione did when she hugged him.

"Harry Potter, sir! Harry Potter!"

Harry immediately recognized the house elf as none other than Dobby, who he’d liberated from the Malfoys a year and half earlier.

“Dobby!” he gasped, both in surprise and the fact the house elf was still hugging him so tightly he could barely breath.

“It is I, Harry Potter! It is Dobby, sir!”

“What are you doing here, at Hogwarts?” asked Harry. “Last I heard, you were trying to find a job.”

"Dobby has found a job at Hogwarts, sir!" squealed the house elf excitedly. "Professor Dumbledore gave Dobby and Winky jobs, sir!"

"Winky?" exclaimed Hermione. "She's here too?"

“Oh yes!" replied Dobby, seizing both Harry and Hermione's hands and pulling them through the kitchen to the fireplace.

On the hearth sat Winky on a stool, looking miserable.

“Winky?” said Hermione quietly, squatting down next to her. But Mr Crouch’s former house elf merely burst into tears, something it looked like she’d been doing quite frequently based on the state of her clothes.

“So how long have you been here?” asked Harry to Dobby as Hermione tried to get Winky to stop crying.

"Only a week, Harry Potter, sir!” answered Dobby.

Hermione soon gave cheering Winky up as a lost cause, and stood back up. Looking down at Dobby, she said, “It’s really nice to finally meet you, Dobby — Harry’s told me all about you. I know Winky said you were having trouble finding a job that paid — is Hogwarts paying you?”

“Oh, yes ma’am! Dobby gets a Galleon a week and one day off a month!”

“And is that what you want?” asked Hermione. “I don’t know much about wizarding money, being a muggle and all.”

It was a lie, she knew everything there was to know about the wizarding economy just as she knew everything she could about everything magical, and it seemed like a very small amount of pay to her, but the little guy seemed to be extremely happy, so she wasn’t about to judge before she’d heard his side.

“More than enough, ma'am!” exclaimed Dobby, before shuddering slightly. "Professor Dumbledore offered Dobby ten Galleons a week, and weekends off, but Dobby beat him down, miss.... Dobby likes freedom, miss, but he isn't wanting too much, miss, he likes work better.”

Hermione nodded, adding this to her knowledge about house elves, or at least this one in particular. Then looking around at the rest of the house elves bustling about the kitchen, including the four still standing with them holding trays of food and drinks in case either her or Harry wanted anything, she said, “Forgive me for being naive, but it seems to me like this is a rather hard, tedious job for the rest of you not to be getting paid anything.”

“Oh, no, ma’am!” exclaimed a dozen or so of the house elves at once. “We enjoy the work we are doing! We do not want paid!”

“I’ve heard Dobby’s former masters didn’t treat him very well. And I know you can’t speak badly about your masters, but are they fairer than Dobby’s former masters?” pressed Hermione.

She knew if they were poorly treated that they wouldn’t be able to say so, but if what Harry had told her about Dobby was anything to go by and her own brief interaction with Winky in the Top Box at the Quidditch World Cup, she thought she should still be able to tell if they were having to keep themselves from saying anything negative, or if their answer was genuine.

“We are very well treated!” came several voices at once, all seemingly completely sincere.

Hermione nodded again, knowing she had as much of an answer as she was going to be able to get from the house elves themselves. So looking at Harry, she said, “You know, it’s really getting close to supper time, so we should probably head back up towards the Great Hall, and not take up any more of the house elves’ time.” Looking around at all the house elves, she added, “And thank you so much for your time and the snacks, and Dobby, it was really nice to meet you.”

The house elves bowed Harry and Hermione out of the kitchen, practically begging them to return any time they wanted.

As Harry and Hermione climbed the stairs back up to the Great Hall, Hermione said, “As impossible as it seems, it looks like house elves really do like their lives, and that most of them aren’t as poorly treated as Dobby and Winky were.”

“Does this mean your campaign against house elf-ism is over?” teased Harry.

“I’ll still fight for those like Dobby and Winky who are abused, but yes — I seem to have been wrong in my initial belief that all house elves are helpless little creatures in need of rescuing,” admitted Hermione playfully, causing Harry to chuckle.

“Well that’s a relief to hear, because as a helpless little creature in need of your rescuing, I was beginning to get worried you wouldn’t have enough time to spread between them _and_ me.”

Hermione slapped him playfully on the arm, laughing herself. “Don’t you worry — I will always make time to rescue you."

By this point they’d arrived at the Great Hall and entered, still laughing and joking and teasing each other.

* * *

A week and a half later, in the first Care of Magical Creatures class of December, Hagrid announced that they were going to try to hibernate the blast-ended skrewts.

But as it turned out, the strange, now six feet long, and very menacing creatures did not in fact hibernate, at least not in pillow-lined wooden crates. Instead, they preferred to lay havoc on the boxes and anyone near them, causing the vast majority of the class to lock themselves safely in Hagrid’s hut, watching the few brave enough to remain outside do battle with the rampaging beasts.

But Harry and Hermione _were_ among those few brave souls who had remained outside, helping Hagrid restrain and re-tie up the magical, and very irritable, creatures. And they were finally down to the last skrewt, which Harry and Hermione were trying to hold it’s attention so Hagrid could sneak around behind it. The beast was backing Harry and Hermione into the wall of Hagrid’s hut as they tried to hold it off with sparks from their wands, when a cheerful voice said, "Well, well, well...this does look like fun.”

Too focused on not losing their lives or limbs to Hagrid’s pet project, neither Harry nor Hermione looked over to find the source of the comment, but Harry had instantly recognized it and muttered out of the corner of his mouth to Hermione, “Rita.”

Once Hagrid had leapt onto the back of the skrewt and flattened it a few moment later, Harry and Hermione both turned to look at the ‘journalist’ with matching looks of derision. Neither of them had forgotten Rita’s work of fiction after the wand weighing ceremony, and while surprised, stunned even, that she hadn’t published another similarly lacking in truth article about the first task, especially as they’d seen her milling about afterwards, they were still feeling less than friendly towards the self-proclaimed reporter.

But Hagrid apparently was less than aware of who the intruder was, as once he’d climbed off the back of the skrewt and slipped a rope around it, turned to Rita and asked, “Who're you?”

"Rita Skeeter, Daily Prophet reporter,” smiled Rita brightly. “So what are these fascinating creatures?” she asked, nodding towards the skrewt Hagrid was trying to drag over to its mates.

"Blast-Ended Skrewts,” answered Hagrid with a grunt as he tied up the creature and walked back over towards Rita.

“Fascinating,” replied Rita with great interest, before saying, "I've never heard of them before...where do they come from?"

Hagrid flushed slightly beneath his wild beard, and Harry and Hermione gave each other significant looks — given Hagrid’s past record with magical creatures, who knew where these things had come from. Then again, Hagrid had yet to get in trouble for any of his illegal animals (the incident with Aragog and Tom Riddle not included), so what was the likelihood he would starting now? Being Dumbledore’s favorite really had its advantages.

“They’re, er…they’re highly specialized,” mumbled out Hagrid after a second, but Rita didn’t seem to either notice or care about his hesitation, instead asking, "Been teaching long?”

As Rita’s eyes glanced over at the few students who’d remained outside with Hagrid and all their various injuries, and then towards Hagrid’s hut where the rest of the class (including all of the Slytherins) were cowering away, Hagrid answered, "This is o'ny me second year."

“Lovely,” replied Rita, sounding every bit as if she hadn’t paid a bit of attention to a word he’d said, which after her interview with Harry a month earlier, was probably true. "I don't suppose you'd like to give an interview, would you? Share some of your experience of magical creatures? The Prophet does a zoological column every Wednesday, as I'm sure you know. We could feature these — er — Bang-Ended Scoots.”

"Blast-Ended Skrewts,” replied Hagrid eagerly. “Yeah! Why not?”

Harry and Hermione both could think of several reasons why not, but held their tongues. There was no way Dumbledore didn’t keep up with what was going on in his school, and not know that Hagrid was raising these creatures and using them as the focal point of his classes. Which in turn meant that they couldn’t be too illicit, or Dumbledore himself would also get in trouble with Ministry for allowing one of his professors to have an illegal creature should anyone find out, which based on the number of injuries sustained so far by everyone in the class seemed very likely to happen sooner or later, if it hadn’t already. And Hagrid was clearly excited to talk about his creatures, so who were they to deny him that opportunity?

So as they walked back up to the castle a few minutes later, after the bell had rung and Hagrid and Rita had set up a meeting for the interview, Harry asked, “What do you think is going to happen? Hagrid didn’t look too eager to share where those things had come from, and knowing his propensity for collecting creatures of questionable character, it might not be of the most legal nature in the eyes of the Ministry.”

Hermione shrugged. “Rita will twist his words to suit whatever her narrative is, Dumbledore will protect Hagrid from any punishment like he always does, and if we’re really, _really_ lucky, Hagrid will be required to kill those things in exchange for not facing any Ministry action.”

Harry laughed. “Wouldn’t that be great — but forgive me if I don’t hold my breath.”

“Speaking of holding your breath and the death that follows that, since you gave up caring about Divination a long time ago, you should incorporate the skrewts into your weekly death you have to predict for whatever nonsense method of predicting the future you’re studying at the moment,” suggested Hermione as they walked into the Great Hall for lunch.

“Is the great Hermione Granger actually suggesting ways for me to half-arse my homework?” gasped Harry in mock aghastness. “Who are you, and what have you done with the studious bookworm I know and love?”

“I know, I know,” chuckled Hermione. “Normally I would never suggest giving anything less than your best for — well, anything, to be quite honest — but this is _Divination_ we’re talking about. It’s a load of crap, and the few times there seem to be real predictions, like with Trelawney and Pettigrew last year, it wasn’t in the least bit influenced by anything that can be taught in a classroom. You’ve either got the gift and occasionally get prophecies you’re in no control of, or you're just making up vague nonsense that’s bound to occur in some form or fashion if you really believe it, because it’s so vague it can be fit to mean anything. And while I sincerely doubt you’re a true seer, even if you are, Divination class isn’t going to make a hill of beans difference on any future prophecies you may or may not make. So I just might be a hair bit more lenient on that class than any others.”

“So just to be clear, you’re suggesting I completely throw out any pretense of caring about that class, and just make everything up from this point on?”

“Since you can’t drop the class and pick up Arithmancy or Runes like I’d prefer — yeah,” answered Hermione seriously. “It’s a waste of everyone’s time, so as long as you promise to use the time you used to spend half caring about that homework to either work on other homework or the tournament, then yes. I’m suggesting you completely stop caring, and I’ll even start helping you make stuff up to get it done quicker. What is it you're doing in there now, anyway?”

Harry and Hermione proceeded to spend the entirety of lunch laughing over new and creative ways to cause Harry’s horrific untimely demise based on where random balls of fire happened to be in respect to the planet earth at different times of the year. Several of those around them who were also less than enthralled by the study of Divination joined in on the fun, but one person who’d sat down near them did not.

Ron had taken a seat several spots away from where Harry and Hermione were, but was still close enough that he couldn’t help overhearing them, and sat scowling the entire time as they laughed and joked about star charts and predictions — Hermione Granger, the know-it-all bookworm, not only _not_ scolding Harry for not giving his best in a class, but actively helping him make stuff up. Make stuff up like he himself used to do with the Boy-Who-Lived before said attention-whore refused to tell him how he’d entered himself into the tournament, hoarding all the fame and attention and money of competing in the tournament for himself. And now Hermione, who used to scold _him_ for not taking his homework seriously, was helping Harry do exactly what she used to scold him about. It was enough to make him wonder if they’d ever really been his friends at all, or if they’d been lying about that, too.

So when he and Harry had Divination later that afternoon, he sneered the hardest when Professor Trelawney said death was circling ever nearer to Harry. But Harry was too busy not caring about Professor Trelawney’s predictions or Ron to notice, pleasantly daydreaming instead about the upcoming Christmas holiday, and all the work he wouldn’t have to do during it and the fabulous girl he’d not being doing said homework with.


	4. Chapter 4

Harry gloomily trudged out of the Transfiguration classroom.

It was a week before the end of term, and Professor McGonagall had just demanded that he have a date for the upcoming Yule Ball (that she’d just now thought it relevant enough to tell them about), something he had absolutely no interest in doing. In having a romantic partner period, and certainly not in trying to find and ask said date to go with him in less than two weeks. In fact, he was pretty sure he would rather face another dragon than try to find a date for a dance he was already bound to embarrass himself at, since with the dragon he at least already knew how to defeat it, but he was completely clueless on how to ask a girl to go to the Ball with him or on how to dance, neither having been social skills his relatives thought worth teaching him.

So not paying attention to where he was going as he walked out of the classroom, he ran straight into someone who was standing in the hallway just outside the door.

Looking up, he realized it was Hermione, waiting for him. And an idea suddenly dawned on him.

"Hermione, I assume from all your reading that you're aware that the champions have to bring a partner to the Yule Ball?" he asked carefully.

"I think I read something about the champions opening the dance, which would require a partner, yeah. Why?" replied Hermione, as they walked towards the Great Hall together for lunch.

Harry was silent for a few seconds, building up his courage, before asking in rush, " _Wouldyouliketogowithme?_ "

"Pardon?" asked Hermione, stopping and turning to face Harry. "Could you repeat that just a _tad_ bit slower?"

"Would you like to go with me? To the Yule Ball," repeated Harry slightly slower this time, though still faster and quieter than his normal voice, before rushing on embarrassedly, "But I'll understand completely if you don't want to."

"What? No, I'll go with you. Of course I'll go with you. I just can't believe you'd ask _me_ ," replied Hermione, clearly taken aback that he'd asked her.

"You sure?" asked Harry, surprised himself that she'd agreed so quickly. "I mean, I'd understand if you wanted to go with someone else instead of me."

“No, no, I want to go with you," said Hermione hurriedly before Harry could try to talk himself out of it like he’d already started doing, and rescind the offer. "I just didn't expect you to want to go with _me_ of all people — I mean, you could have pick of any girl in the castle, so I’m just surprised you’d pick me."

There was an awkward pause for several seconds as they both just stood there looking at each other, Harry too embarrassed to say that out of any girl in the castle she is exactly the one he’d pick now that the idea had finally dawned on him, and Hermione not knowing anything else to say.

"So, uh, I guess we'll talk about when and where to meet up when it gets closer to time?" said Harry awkwardly after several seconds, unsure of what exactly to say, but knowing he needed to say something or they’d both just keep standing there in ever increasingly awkward silence forever.

"Yeah. Yeah," replied Hermione, just as awkwardly.

“So...lunch?" asked Harry, trying to break the awkwardness that had settled over them and return them to their normal, comfortable selves.

"Yes, lunch," replied Hermione gratefully, the relief audible in her voice, and so they quickly resumed their walk towards the Great Hall, neither of them saying anything more until after they'd sat down at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall.

Crowded as usual at lunchtime, the only seats together Harry and Hermione could find when they arrived were across from Ronald Weasley.

Ever since the first task, when Harry’s popularity had predictably soared after his not only survival, but first place finish, Ron had been oscillating back and forth between actively loathing Harry for all the attention he was receiving and for still refusing to tell him how he’d entered his name into the tournament, and trying to talk to Harry like they were best of pals in an attempt to use some of Harry’s popularity to his own advantage. And as acquiring a girl to go to the Yule Ball with him was best served by riding in the wake of Harry’s fame, that was the side he chose now.

"Got any idea who you're going to try?” he asked as soon as Harry sat down.

“Huh?” asked Harry in confusion, having no clue what the redhead was talking about. How could you ’try’ a person, and try them for what?

“The Yule Ball — do you know who you’re going to try for for the Yule Ball?” repeated Ron impatiently.

“You mean what girl am I going to ask to do me the honor of attending the Yule Ball with me?” asked Harry.

“Yeah,” replied Ron. When Harry didn’t answer in half a second, the redhead continued on, “Listen — you're not going to have any trouble. You're a champion. You've just beaten a Hungarian Horntail. I bet they'll be queuing up to go with you.”

“Oh, Merlin — I didn’t even think of that! I sure hope not,” groaned Harry, causing Hermione to reach under the table and squeeze his leg lightly in support and sympathy.

Ron, on the other hand, completely ignored Harry’s groan and began monologuing about the kind of girl he’d prefer going with, which really was just a list of physical requirements any such girl he would consider asking would have to meet. As he then moved on to complaining about how impossible it was going to be to ask a girl to the ball, and idly wondered if he could just lasso one, Harry glanced over at Hermione with a smirk, having just the slightest inkling as to why it might be so impossible for Ron to ask a girl to the Ball. Hermione smirked back, clearly thinking the same.

~HP~

As it turned out, Ron’s prediction and Harry’s fear that girls would be lining up to ask him to the Yule Ball turned out to be true.

The very next day, some curly-haired third year Hufflepuff girl Harry barely recognized and certainly hadn’t ever talked to before asked him to go with her. It was right before Harry and the rest of the fourth year Gryffindors had History of Magic class, so after he’d politely told the girl that he already had someone he was going with, Ron, Dean, and Seamus, who’d been standing near enough to see the girl ask him and then walk away disappointed, but not close enough to actually hear what Harry had said to her, acted like one might expect Draco Malfoy or some other Slytherin to act, and taunted and ridiculed Harry about her throughout class. But Harry resolutely ignored them, knowing he would be the one with the last laugh come Christmas night when he walked into the Yule Ball with Hermione Granger on his arm.

Girls continued to ask him out over the next several days, including some too young to attend even with an older student, until eventually Harry had told enough of them that he already had a date for the Yule Ball that word spread throughout the female population of Hogwarts that Harry was already taken, and they finally stopped trying to ask him. But for the several days until that finally happened, he had to put up with his fellow Gryffindor males’ continued taunts and laughs every time they saw him turn another girl down, making him wonder how any of them were going to get dates of their own for the Ball — he certainly wouldn’t have gone out with any of them after that if he’d been a girl.

Fortunately, however, this was about the worst he had to deal with leading up to the Yule Ball and in the last week of classes. Despite her eagerness to interview Hagrid about the skrewts, Rita still hadn’t published any article about them in the Daily Prophet, so in the last Care of Magical Creatures class of the term, Harry asked him about it.

"She didn' seem very int'rested in magical creatures, ter tell yeh the truth,” answered Hagrid. "She jus' wanted me ter talk about you, Harry, since she knew yeh were in me class. Well, I told her we'd been friends since I went ter fetch yeh from the Dursleys. 'Never had to tell him off in four years?' she said. 'Never played you up in lessons, has he?' I told her no, an she didn' seem happy at all. Yeh'd think she wanted me to say yeh were horrible, Harry.”

“She probably did,” replied Hermione. “Now that Harry’s well-liked by the castle again after he did so well in the first task, she needs trouble to be able to sell. Some breaking story that contradicts what most people think at the moment to make them have to buy a new issue — a manufactured crisis only she has the story on."

“Then she should've interviewed Snape," said Harry sardonically. "He'd give her the goods on me any day. 'Potter has been crossing lines ever since he arrived here —’ I believe were his exact words after my name had come out of the Goblet.”

Before Harry could really get started on a rant about Snape, or Hagrid could try yet again to defend the abusive ’teacher’ like he did every time Snape’s name came up, Hermione quickly but politely asked, "Are you planning on attending the Yule Ball Christmas Evening, Hagrid?”

"Though' I might look in on it, yeah,” replied Hagrid gruffly. "Should be a good do, I reckon. You'll be openin the dancin', won yeh, Harry? Who're you takin'?"

“Sadly, I do have to,” answered Harry, ignoring the second half of the question. “I’m really not looking forward to embarrassing myself even further by not being able to dance.”

Fortunately Hagrid ran with this, possibly thinking Harry hadn’t answered him because he didn’t have anyone yet and was embarrassed to admit it, instead of having someone and simply not wanting to tell people until they all found out the evening of. But either way, instead of pressing Harry on who he was taking, he just replied, “Ah, I’m sure yer not all tha’ bad at dancin’."

But Hermione, instead of breezing over Harry’s worries that he would embarrass himself with a trite ‘encouragement’, had gasped to herself. Knowing Harry perhaps even better than he knew himself sometimes, she knew that if Harry said he wan’t able to dance, he wasn’t trying to be modest — he really didn’t know how to dance. A wave of guilt swept over her for not having realized it earlier and having just assumed he already knew how to dance like she did, as it became obviously clear in her mind that he _wouldn’t_ know how to dance given his upbringing. She immediately made a mental note to ask him later if he would allow her to teach him how to dance so he would know before the Yule Ball, and _not_ have to embarrass himself in front of the entire school, who would no doubt hold it over his head for the rest of his time at Hogwarts or until the next thing they could hold over his head came along, like they did every time something happened involving him.

~HP~

So that evening, as they finished up their day’s homework in the library, Hermione casually said, “When you told Hagrid this morning that you’re not able to dance, was that by any chance because you’ve never had anyone to teach you how to dance?”

Harry looked up from where he was adding the finishing touches on why the position of Io around Saturn meant his fourth death that month was going to be at the teeth of a rabid pack of rats, and replied, “Yeah. Not exactly something the Dursleys thought absolutely necessary to teach me — although that wasn’t just me, I don’t think Dudley knows how to dance, either. And sorry for not mentioning it to you earlier, and will likely embarrass you too Christmas night — I’ll understand completely if you want to dump me and go with someone else who does know how to dance.”

“No, silly!” exclaimed Hermione. "I was just making sure before I asked if you would be willing to let me teach you. And _I’m_ sorry for just assuming you already knew how to dance just because my parents _did_ teach me as a little girl. I wasn’t even thinking that you didn’t grow up in a loving household like I was blessed to.”

“Oh,” said Harry in more than slight surprise. “You want to teach me? You sure that won’t be even worse than just suffering through one embarrassing song with me and then not having to dance any more?”

“Harry! Of course not!” laughed Hermione. “I would be honored to teach you how to dance, and as far as just ’suffering’ through one song goes, I fully intend on dancing to a lot more than just one song. And I promise you, once you know how to dance and are no longer afraid of embarrassing yourself, you’ll want to dance more than just one song as well."

“I don’t know about that, but I’d be more than happy for you to try to teach me how to dance,” replied Harry. “Just don’t get your hopes or expectations up too high for my dancing ability. I’ll probably still suck even with you being the one teaching me.”

“Oh, I know you’ll do just fine,” said Hermione encouragingly, before asking, “If you’re nearly done with your homework, want to go start practicing now? I’m sure we can find an empty classroom nearby to use.”

For the next hour until they had to head back to the common room before anyone caught them out of bounds after hours, Hermione practiced dancing with Harry. She started out teaching him the steps to the simplest dance she knew just to make sure he’d have something presentable at the Ball a week and a half later, but Harry picked it up quickly to his own great surprise, and by the end they had made solid progress on more advanced dances. Hermione credited it to his dueling skill, as that also required quick, careful footwork — Harry insisted it was entirely due to Hermione's proficiency at teaching. But whatever it was, most likely a combination of both, Harry had made much more progress than either of them had honestly expected for his first lesson, and they readily agreed to continue practicing for an hour or so every night until the Yule Ball, so the two of them would be the best dance pair on the floor, blowing everyone’s minds.


	5. Chapter 5

A few nights later, Harry and Hermione had just returned to the Gryffindor common room following their nightly dance practice, when the twins plopped down on opposite armrests of the couch they were relaxing on.

At the table nearby was Ron, trying to build a card castle with a pack of Exploding Snaps. While they hadn’t been paying more attention to him than they had to, Harry and Hermione knew from Ron’s nonstop bitching about it that he still hadn’t found anyone to go to the ball with him, doubtlessly due in no small part to the fact he hadn’t actually _asked_ anyone to go with him yet. But that hadn’t stopped him from complaining, as if he just expected the prettiest girl in the castle to walk up to him and ask him out — doubtlessly in front of the entire school in his daydream, where he’d pretend to have to consider it for a moment, as if he already had countless offers made him, and he had to decide if he really thought she was pretty enough for him to take.

And apparently the twins also knew of his girl troubles, as immediately upon sitting down, George looked over at his younger brother and asked with faux innocence, "Got a date for the Ball yet?”

At that moment the castle blew up in Ron's face, so he turned towards his brothers and growled, "No."

“Better hurry up, mate, or all the good ones will be gone," said Fred.

"And I suppose _you_ have a date already?" retorted Ron sulkily.

"Of course," replied Fred with a cheerful smile. "Angelina."

" _Seriously?_ And she said yes?" said Ron in shock, though whether due to thinking it impossible that Fred might have already asked someone with still over a week to go before the Ball, or that someone would have said yes to his older brother, the four Gryffindors not named Ron were unsure.

"Good point," replied Fred thoughtfully, as if suddenly realizing that maybe he should _ask_ the girl he was going with whether they actually wanted to go with him or not. So leaning his head back over the back of the couch to where he could see (an upside down, from his vantage point) Angelina talking to Alicia on the other side of the common room, he shouted, "Oi! Angelina!"

The Gryffindor chaser looked up at him, shouting back, "What?"

"Want to come to the ball with me?” asked Fred.

Contemplating the redhead for a second or two, she finally shrugged and said, "Sure, why not? And Alicia says she’ll go with George if he wants.”

After Fred and George had both given her and Alicia thumbs up and what appeared to Hermione to be mouthed ' _Love you'_ s, Angelina returned to her conversation with the other Gryffindor chaser, as if it were an everyday occurrence for someone to proposition her to the Yule Ball from across the room with everyone in said crowded room watching.

Looking back at Ron, Fred smirked, "There you go — piece of cake.”

Ron just stared at his older brother in disbelief, until after a few seconds George broke the silence and asked, "Ron, can we borrow Pigwidgeon?"

“Why?” asked Ron suspiciously, as if it were completely beyond reason that the twins might want to send a letter to someone, and use his owl to do so.

"Because George wants to invite him to the ball as a backup in case Alicia bails," retorted Fred sarcastically.

"Because we want to send a letter, you stupid great prat," added George.

"Who d'you two keep writing to, anyway?" questioned Ron, as if still finding it highly suspicious that his brothers could really just want to use Pig to send a letter, and not feed it Canary Creams or something.

“Sir None-of-your-Business,” retorted Fred. “Now is Pig free, or do we have to use one of the school owls again?"

Finally relenting, Ron huffed, “Fine — I assume he’s up in the owlery like normal."

“Thank you muchly,” said George with a fake bow as he stood up, before looking over at Fred and saying, “Well...let’s go find him."

Once the twins had left, Ron looked over at Harry and said, "We should get a move on, you know...ask someone. He's right. We don't want to end up with a pair of trolls.”

“ _Excuse_ me?!” sputtered Hermione, incapable of believing that even Ron could be so callous and misogynistic.

"Well — you know," said Ron with a shrug, clearly not seeing the blaring neon signs with loudspeakers hinting to him in giant letters that he really might ought to change directions posthaste, if not quicker. "I'd rather go alone than with — with Eloise Midgen, say.”

“And _what_ exactly is wrong with Eloise?” demanded Hermione, glaring at Harry’s former friend. “She's a really nice girl!”

"Her nose is off-center,” shrugged Ron, still completely oblivious to the fact that he was digging himself into a hole he was never going to have any chance of climbing out of.

“Oh, I see!” snapped Hermione. "So basically, you're going to take the best-looking girl who'll have you, even if she's completely horrible?"

"Er — yeah! That sounds about right!" replied Ron brightly, glad she was finally getting the picture.

“You’re disgusting,” said Hermione, shaking her head in disgust as she stood up. Looking down at Harry, she said pompously, “I’m going to bed so I don’t have to listen to this _pig_ any longer — I’ll see you in the morning.”

And with that she swept off towards the girls dormitories and disappeared out of sight up the stairs.

“Congrats, Ron — _that_ won’t hurt your chances of finding someone to go with you if Hermione decides to tell _anyone_ what you just said,“ said Harry sarcastically as he stood up, before Ron could try to defend himself or say anything else stupid. “I’m going to bed as well — goodnight."

Only instead of immediately heading up to his own dorm and bed like Hermione had, he first walked over to where Angelina and Alicia were still talking.

“Hi, ladies,” he said quietly so no one could overhear him. “I just had one quick question for you — Had the twins already asked you out before just a few minutes ago?”

“Oh yeah,” answered Alicia. “George asked me out the day the Ball was announced. Can’t say for sure about Angelina, but I do know that wasn’t the first time.”

“Same,” said Angelina. “I was studying in the library that evening, when Fred came up and asked. So when he asked again earlier — well, it was obviously just the twins being the twins. That, or it was the opposite ones asking us out that had the first time, since no one can tell the difference anyway, but I assume that wasn’t the case.”

“No, I don’t think so,” answered Harry. “And I was thinking they had already asked you. They’d just asked Ron if he’d asked anyone out yet, so when the younger redhead acted like there was no way the twins had asked anyone out yet either, that’s when Fred yelled across the room.”

“Ah — makes sense,” replied Angelina, before saying, “And speaking of dates, heard rumors floating around from a number of the girls that you have a date already and have been turning down offers.”

Harry nodded. “I do, and we’re keeping it quiet till night of. No reason to give the rumor mills anything specific to gossip about.”

“No worries — we won’t ask,” replied Alicia. “And if anyone asks us, we’ll confirm you already have someone so hopefully they won’t bother you trying to ask you out.”

“Thanks, appreciate it,” said Harry, before continuing, “Well, that’s all I really wanted to know, so I’ll leave you two alone again, and head off to bed.”

~HP~

Friday morning, on the last day of classes for the year, Harry was getting dressed to head downstairs and meet Hermione to walk down to breakfast, when Ron looked over from where he was still lying in bed, and said, “Harry — we've just got to grit our teeth and do it. When we get back to the common room tonight, we'll both have partners — agreed?"

“Good luck — hope whoever you ask says yes,” replied Harry honestly, completely avoiding the part where he was supposed to be included in this asking someone endeavor.

He hoped the redhead would wise up and ask someone he’d actually enjoy spending the evening with, but even if he didn’t, Harry still hoped he'd find someone — just because they weren’t friends anymore didn’t mean he wished any ill luck on his first friend. But after that, Harry did avoid Ron for the rest of the day as best he could, so that the redhead couldn’t try to ask him if he’d asked anyone out yet.

But though they shared three classes that day, Ron didn’t try speaking to him at all during any of them, though that was probably aided by the fact he and Hermione had started picking seats away from the redhead, so the redhead couldn’t try distracting Harry with games during class, and Harry could properly concentrate and take notes.

The last class of the term for fourth year Gryffindors was Potions. Like always, it was another abysmal hour and a half of sneering and snide comments from both the ’professor’ and several select Slytherin students. Harry had diligently added every ingredient, and from what he could tell and Hermione whispered into his ear, had the second best looking potion in the class behind Hermione’s own perfect one, yet as he’d set his flask on Snape’s desk at the end of class, the Head of Slytherin had still sneered that it wasn’t a blue enough shade of the color blue, and it looked like Harry was going to be getting bottom marks again.

But Harry really couldn't care less, as he didn’t even have to pass exams that year due to his name coming out of the fiery goblet, not to mention the fact that there was no way Dumbledore was going to let him fail out of Hogwarts due to one bad grade after as many times as the headmaster had let him off with nothing more than a stern warning for flagrantly violating nearly all the school rules and even several actual Ministry laws. But more importantly, Hermione had smiled at his potion as she filled her own flask to take up, which meant it was clearly a well-made potion, regardless of what the Snake might hiss. So it was with a jump in his step that Harry exited the dungeons with Hermione, free from classes until January.

They headed up to supper together, noticing as they walked into the Great Hall that Ron had stopped in the entrance hall instead of going straight into the Great Hall like normal, but they thought little of it, more interested in what the house elves had cooked them up for supper that night than what the redhead might be doing. But walking into the Gryffindor common room a while later, they spotted him sitting with Ginny in a distant corner, looking like someone had just told him that Quidditch had been permanently banned from wizarding society and replaced with studying, as Ginny sat next to him trying to soothe him. Harry couldn’t help but walk over to find out what had happened.

"What's up, Ron?”

The redhead looked up with blind horror in his face, gasping wildly, "Why did I do it? I don't know what made me do it!”

Harry gave him a confused look, having no clue where to go with that, before looking over at Ginny to see if she could give him an actual answer.

"He just tried to ask Fleur to the Ball," supplied Ginny, patting her brother's arm sympathetically.

Harry stared first at her, and then at Ron, in complete disbelief. He knew Ron had been way more affected by the veela at the Quidditch World Cup than he had (at least after Hermione had grabbed his arm to pull his fingers out of his ears to show him the referee flexing under the veela’s spell), and then by Fleur since she’d come to Hogwarts, but he’d never have thought the redhead would be so delusional as to actually try to ask her to go to the Yule Ball with him. As far as he knew, Ron had never even tried talking to the French girl before, let alone actually gotten to know her at all.

When no one said anything for several seconds, Ron gasped out again, "I don't know what made me do it! What was I playing at? There were people — all around — I've gone mad — everyone watching! I was just walking past her in the entrance hall — she was standing there talking to Diggory — and it sort of came over me — and I asked her!”

_So_ that’s _why he didn’t come into the Great Hall for supper_ , thought Harry and Hermione (who’d followed Harry over to see what was going on) to themselves.

Ron, meanwhile, had buried his face in his hands, but continued mumbling away anyway, even though it was barely distinguishable. Harry had just managed to make out, "She looked at me like I was a sea slug or something. Didn't even answer. And then — I dunno — I just sort of came to my senses and ran for it,” when Hermione interrupted him in a superior, ‘I told you so’ tone of voice.

"A troll's starting to look pretty good, isn’t it?”

Ron looked up and glared at her for several seconds, before his expression suddenly changed.

“ _Hermione_ — you're a girl!” he said, the fact having obviously just dawned on him for the first time at that moment.

"Only took you four years to notice," muttered Hermione, causing Harry to have to turn away and bite his lip to keep from laughing out loud.

“So _you_ can go to the ball with me,” continued Ron, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“As your last resort? I don’t think so,” sneered Hermione. “Anyway, I couldn’t even if I was willing to consider going with you after how you’ve treated Harry this year."

But Ron ignored almost everything she’d said, latching only onto the ’couldn't’ part.

"Why not? It's bad enough for a guy to show up to the Ball alone, but it'd just be pathetic for a girl to show up by herself,” he insulted.

Hermione just gaped at him, unable to believe, even with his years of abusive behavior towards her and his last few months towards Harry, that their former friend and recent hanger-on could really be _that_ cruel. Harry also stared at the redhead in shock, and even Ginny looked at her brother in slight surprise and stopped rubbing his arm.

“Come on, ‘Mione,” whined Ron after several seconds of deathly silence that he apparently didn’t notice was directed directly at him. "Harry and I need partners. We’re going to look really stupid if we haven't got any — everyone else has…”

Deciding it wasn’t even worth trying to get through his thick skull just how vile what he’d said was, Hermione changed tactics to something that might get through one day.

“Then you should have started asking a little sooner than a week before the Ball, shouldn’t you have?” she said haughtily. “And maybe looked for someone you actually liked instead of trying to just get the prettiest girl you could see,” before finishing with a growl, "Also, never _ever_ call me ‘Mione again if you value your life.”

But Ron ignored everything she had said, and replied in a tone that indicated he thought he was making her a great, magnanimous offer, “But I’m offering _you_ the chance to go with me now — giving you the opportunity to have someone to go with.”

Giving up on talking any sense into the redhead, and beyond fed up with him, Hermione simply growled, “Someone has already asked me, thank you very much. Someone who realized a long time ago that I am in fact a girl, and asked me to go with them practically as soon as they found out there even was a Ball to invite me to.”

“Oh, come on — who would ask _you_ , the know-it-all bookworm?” scoffed Ron. “The only two friends you even _have_ are me and Harry.”

“You know what?! That’s it!” exclaimed Hermione angrily. “I’ve had enough of you!”

And with that she turned and stormed off to her dorm for the second time in three nights.

Harry briefly thought about trying to follow after her, but by the time he realized what was happening, she had already disappeared up the girls staircase, and while he knew she’d come up to his dorm multiple times over the years, he didn’t know how well she, or any of the other girls up said staircase, would appreciate him going up theirs.

So instead he turned back and looked down at the offending redhead again, thinking sadly to himself, _Making her storm off twice in three days — that might be a new record for him_.

But before he could say anything out loud, or decide what to do next, Ron looked at him and said dismissively, "She's lying. There’s no way she's got anyone.”

“She’s not,” said Harry quietly shaking his head, not really wanting to get into an argument himself with the redhead.

“Who is it then?” demanded Ron angrily, while at the same time Ginny said, “Are you sure? I haven’t heard anyone say she has someone to go with yet."

“Sorry — if she wants to keep it a secret, I’m not going to break her trust by telling,” answered Harry with another shake of his head. “You can ask her yourself if you like, but especially after this I sincerely doubt she’ll tell you. You’ll just have to wait until Christmas night like everyone else to find out. But right now I’m heading out to the library, in case she happens to come back down and has me lost.”

Then he turned and headed towards the portrait hole, trusting his best friend would probably come find him soon enough, once she’d had a chance to cool down a bit and wanted something to take her mind off her row with the git.


	6. Chapter 6

All throughout the week leading up to Christmas, every time he saw Harry and Hermione, Ron kept trying to spring questions on Hermione about who she was going with to the Yule Ball, as if hoping to startle an answer out of her by asking when she least expected it.

It was one of these times, as Harry and Hermione walked across the entrance hall to the Great Hall for supper, that Ron walked up and asked, "Hermione — who are you going to the ball with?”

Like every other time he’d asked so far, Hermione merely replied, "I'm not telling you, Ronald. We’ll just have another row, and I for one am enjoying the Christmas season far too much for that."

None of this was unusual in and of itself, as it was already the third time he’d asked her that just that day, but what _was_ different this time was that they almost immediately heard from behind them a drawling, "You're joking, Weasel! You're not telling me someone's asked _that_ to the ball? Not the long-incisored mudblood?”

Ron whipped around with his wand out, as if he hoped that by proving his chivalry that Hermione would admit that she’d been lying this whole time about already having a date, and finally just agree to go with him already.

“Think you’re going to try to duel me, do you?” sneered the snake at Ron and his wand.

Harry and Hermione took this as their cue to exit scene posthaste, and quickly scampered into the Great Hall so they couldn’t be associated with anything that happened next.

As they sped through the doors leading into the Great Hall and made the turn towards the Gryffindor table, they heard out in the entrance hall behind them, “ _Furnunculus!_ ” and “ _Densaugeo!_ ” Not risking pausing to see if they could hear anything else, Harry and Hermione increased their pace to the Gryffindor table, sitting down as soon as they found seats. But when they looked around to see who they’d sat next to, they realized that in their haste not to be associable with the duel going on in the entrance hall outside, they’d gone to the wrong table, and were sitting with Cho Chang to the left of Harry, Luna Lovegood to the right of Hermione, and Fleur Delacour and a few other Beauxbatons across from them.

“ ‘I, ‘Arry,” said the Veela cheerfully but in slight surprise. “I didn’t realize students were allowed to sit at different 'ouse tables zan zeir own, even if zey are champions.”

“Oh, umm…actually no, no one normally does — we were just trying to avoid punishment by association from a duel going on outside in the entrance hall between my former friend and my greatest student archnemesis,” said Harry apologetically. “We can leave if you’d like, our table’s just behind us."

“Not at all, not at all!” replied Fleur cheerfully. “We are more zan 'appy to 'ave you join us! I was just surprised to see you, zat’s all. And by ze way, I sincerely apologize for not taking you seriously and calling you a little boy and too young to compete after your name first came out of ze goblet — I was being 'asty and you were magnificent 'andling your dragon in ze first task, and are clearly worthy of being in zis tournament.”

“Uh, thank you,” said Harry awkwardly, blushing slightly at the praise, before quickly changing the subject away from himself and asking her, “So how do you like it here at Hogwarts?"

“Well, zis ‘Ogwarts’ food is a lot 'eavier zan I’m used to in France, but I'm coming to like it,” answered Fleur truthfully. “But I do ‘ave to make sure I don’t eat too much of it, or I won’t be able to fit into my dress robes come Christmas."

Harry sincerely doubted the trim witch was going to have any such problems, but as his date was sitting next to him, he wisely kept this to himself — if he was going to compliment any witch's trim, healthy figure, it was going to be his best friend and Yule Ball date’s.

But before he could reply anything, their conversation was interrupted by Snape jumping up from his seat at the high table and quickly sweeping through the Great Hall and out into the entrance hall. From whispers they heard around them now that they stopped to listen, it sounded like after both of their first few spells had missed, Ron and Malfoy had decided to just attack each other fisticuffs style in a knockdown, drag-out brawl. So now Draco was pounding the redhead into the flagged stone floor where Harry and Hermione had hurriedly left them to avoid becoming unfairly associated. And based on the fact it was Crabbe and Goyle who were standing at the high table next to where Snape had up until a few moments before been sitting, the two had finally come wandering through the entrance hall on their own quest for sustenance, and saw their master being attacked — even if said 'attacker’ was a bloody and bruised heap beneath their master. At which point they had hurried as quickly as their lumbering strides could carry them to tell the chief Snake that there was someone hurting his pet snakelet, and therefore someone he could throw in detention.

They heard nothing more of what happened once Snape intervened, until they finally returned to the Gryffindor common room several hours later, having stopped by the library and an empty classroom to practice their dancing some more between finishing supper and making it back up to Gryffindor Tower.

But walking into the common room, they were almost immediately assaulted by an irate Ron Weasley shouting at them, “Where the bloody hell were you two?!” Turning his attention directly to Hermione he continued, "I was getting my arse kicked trying to defend your honor, and you completely disappeared!” Rounding on Harry he added, “And _you_! Not stepping up to help me defend her honor, making me do it all by myself! I got all bloody and bruised, and had to spend an hour in the hospital wing, and got a weeks' worth of detentions with Snape over Christmas break for it!”

Hermione rolled her eyes. “He calls me a mudblood every other other sentence — get over it already. If you payed any attention to me at all, you’d know I don’t care what that pompous prick calls me. I’ve never once asked you to defend me when he’s called me a mudblood, and if you really knew me, you’d know I’m more than perfectly capable of handling him myself should I so choose. Not to brag, but I’m kind of the smartest person in this castle.”

“That’s not bragging, that’s just stating the obvious truth,” replied Harry to Hermione, before turning to the redhead. “And you know fighting isn’t allowed in the castle, so if you’re going to do it, for Merlin’s sake at least make sure you win, and if at all possible win so hard and fast that you can be long gone by the time anyone notices anything happened.”

Ron stared at them in disbelief, clearly having expected sympathy from them for his heroic and noble act, not a reprimand and advice on how to fight better from someone who hadn’t even stayed to fight in the first place.

“But— but—!” he eventually stuttered out. “He called you the worst insult there is!”

“But it’s _just_ a word. It only has power over you if you let it,” explained Hermione patiently. “The same as ‘Voldemort’ is _just_ a name. It’s up to _you_ whether you let yourself be controlled by it or not. I choose not to, be it mudblood or Voldemort. Also, I can think of several words worse than mudblood, at least from the muggle world, and almost exclusively used about females — not that I’m going to repeat any of them ever, but I would ignore them as well if Draco were to discover and call me any of them.” Turning to Harry, she added, “Oh — and Harry, if you don’t know the words I’m referring to due to your — _unique_ — muggle upbringing, ask me later."

Ron noticeably flinched at both of her uses of You-Know-Who’s name, and gaped (however briefly the first time due to having to immediately wince again afterwards for 'Voldemort') at both of her uses of the slur for muggleborn, proving her point perfectly.

But before Ron could actually come up with anything to say to Hermione's response, there was a pecking on the common room window, and Harry and Hermione looked over to see an owl sitting on the window sill.

“Isn’t that — ?” asked Hermione. It looked to her like the owl they’d used to write to Sirius after the first task, but she didn’t want Ron knowing that and thinking he was on good enough terms with them to find out what Sirius had written back.

Harry nodded, walking over to the window and opening it up. Taking the letter off the owl’s leg before closing the window back, he looked over at Hermione and nodded shortly again to let her it was in fact from Sirius.

Leaving Ron without a word, Hermione walked over to Harry and said quietly, “We’ve still got ten minutes before curfew, if we want to find a nearby vacant classroom….”

So the two of them quickly walked back over to the portrait hole they’d just recently came through, and disappeared back out into the castle. Finding the nearest unlocked classroom, they entered and unrolled Sirius’s letter, reading it together. Unfortunately it didn’t tell them much, other than that Sirius had been going to suggest the Conjunctivitus Curse that Krum had used, and that he was of the same mind as Hermione in that there were still plenty of opportunities for whoever entered Harry’s name to hurt him. With nothing to write him back about, as nothing out of the ordinary had happened since the first task, Harry simply rolled the letter back up and stuck it in his robes, before they returned to the common room to hang out until it was time to go to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

Christmas morning Harry woke early, Hermione having insisted the night before that he meet her in the common room before the sun had even risen, for a surprise.

Stumbling sleepily into the common room, he found Hermione perched on the couch looking like she’d been awake for some time already, stroking Crookshanks who was purring contentedly in her lap. But as soon as she saw him, after carefully setting Crookshanks down on the cushion next to her, she leapt up with a bright smile, quickly crossing the room to give him a tight hug as she wished him Merry Christmas.

Harry wished her Merry Christmas in return, before asking, “So what is it that’s so important I had to wake up thirty minutes before sunrise on Christmas morning?”

“Come on,” smiled Hermione in answer. “I have something I want to show you.”

And with that she grabbed his hand and dragged him out of the portrait hole, and down through the castle. Eventually they made it outside, where Hermione continued to lead him through the fresh, undisturbed snow and around the edge of the Black Lake, until finally coming to a rock outcropping over the lake, that she sat down on the edge of, her feet dangling out over the water ten feet below.

As Harry sat down next to her, she said, “Now we wait — about ten minutes, I think.”

But before the ten minutes had fully passed, as the sky began to light up in brilliant color, Harry finally realized why they were out there — the sunrise.

As the edge of the sun finally peaked above the distant mountains, flooding everything in brilliant gold, Hermione said quietly, “I come out here often, at all times of the year, before anyone else is awake, to watch the sunrise and be reminded of just how blessed I am to be a witch and to be able to attend Hogwarts. And it gives me the encouragement to always give a hundred percent in everything I do, and not waste the gifts and opportunities I’ve been given,” she explained. “Not that I don’t naturally love learning, and wouldn’t try my hardest anyway, but it can all eventually weigh down even on someone like me, especially with all the crap we have to go through every year, and this just helps keep me going when I might want to throw the towel in and only give ninety percent on a day when we have double History of Magic and Potions with the Snakes,” she finished with a light chuckle.

Harry laughed lightly along with her, choosing not to say anything and instead just wrap his arm around her shoulder. They sat there like that in silence for a long time, watching the sunrise and then just enjoying the early Christmas morning nature, until Harry’s stomach finally rumbled, causing Hermione to giggle.

“Sounds like our morning nature expedition is over. Ready for breakfast?”

“My stomach certainly is, even if I could continue staring out over the lake for the rest of the morning,” replied Harry, finally dropping his arm from around her shoulder so they could stand up.

A short hike later and they arrived back at the castle, where the Great Hall was just opening up for breakfast, and a decent handful of people were already beginning to eat, having woken up early enough to have already opened their presents and made it down to the Great Hall. Harry and Hermione joined in, digging into the scrumptious breakfast of everything imaginable that the house elves had provided, both of them more than hungry after their early time of arising and hike through the snow-covered grounds of Hogwarts.

As the hall began to really start to fill up an hour later, they themselves had finally filled up as well, and they headed back up towards Gryffindor Tower so Harry could open his presents. When they walked through the portrait hole into the Gryffindor common room, they found Ron and the other fourth year boys just walking down the stairs from the dorm, only then having finished opening their presents and heading down to breakfast.

But as soon as the redhead saw Harry, he exclaimed almost angrily, “Harry! Where have you been?! Why haven’t you opened your presents yet?!”

“I went to watch the sunrise over the lake, and then ate breakfast because I was hungry,” answered Harry, unsure why his absence had caused such a stir for the redhead.

“But you didn’t open your presents first!” exclaimed Ron in what could only be described as pure disbelief, like it was against the law to leave unopened presents at the foot of your bed, or like everyone had suddenly started calling He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named by his real name (nickname or birth name).

“It was dark, everyone was still asleep, and I was in a hurry,” replied Harry. “What does it matter to you anyway whether I opened my presents yet or not? Or whether I even open them at all — they're _my_ presents, not yours.”

It obviously mattered a great deal to Ron, but as all he could apparently do was stand there and gape like a fish at Harry, his jaw occasionally working up and down but no words coming out, Harry never found out why it mattered so much.

Because after several seconds without any reply from Ron, Harry finally shrugged and started walking towards the staircase again, Hermione following close behind him.

Hermione had already opened all of her presents before meeting Harry in the common room to go watch the sunrise together, so she now joined him to watch him open his. Walking into Harry’s dorm room, Hermione immediately ran over and jumped onto his bed, before eagerly sitting up straight with her legs crossed under her, looking at Harry expectantly.

Harry rolled his eyes at her antics as he crossed over to the small pile of gifts at the foot of his bed, saying, “You seem more excited to watch me open my presents than you probably were opening yours.”

“I like seeing you get gifts when you didn’t for the first decade of your life, and still don’t from your biological family — what can I say?” replied Hermione with a shrug, as Harry reached down and picked up his first present. The one he instantly knew upon seeing was from Hermione, based on the very careful wrapping, neat edges, and perfectly sized bow on top.

It also had ‘From Hermione’ written in large, clear letters on the tag in the top corner.

But before he could start to open it, there was a sudden _crack_ , and Dobby was standing before them.

“Ah, Harry Potter is finally opening his presents, sir!” squeaked the house elf excitedly, his ears bobbing up and down, before continuing on tentatively, "Can Dobby give Harry Potter his present now?”

“Of course,” answered Harry. “And I have one for you as well.”

He opened his trunk and rummaged around until he found the Ugly Christmas Sweater he’d ordered by owl mail from a wizarding shop that specialized in selling muggle items to the wizarding world, and that Hermione had shrunk down to house elf size. Because thanks to the wonderful girl sitting on the bed next to him at the moment, who’d been the one to think of the idea, he actually _had_ bought Dobby a Christmas present shortly after they’d discovered that Dobby had come to Hogwarts. Similarly, Hermione had bought Winky a cute hat, and they’d been planning on going down to the kitchens sometime in the afternoon to give both Dobby and Winky their gifts, but as Dobby was already there now, Harry saw no reason not to go ahead and give it to him.

Handing Dobby the sweater and taking the small package the house elf held out in return, Harry said, “Here you go — and thank you for this, you didn’t have to get me anything.”

Opening the package up he found two socks, the left one bright red with a pattern of broomsticks upon it, and the right one green with a pattern of Snitches. Harry immediately pulled them on while thanking Dobby again, causing the house elf's eyes to leak with happiness.

Once the house elf had disapparated back to the kitchens, Harry resumed opening the rest of his gifts, starting with Hermione’s that he’d set on the bed next to him to get Dobby’s gift out from inside his trunk. Opening Hermione's gift up, he found _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_ , the most comprehensive book on Quidditch in the British Isles ever written, and a book that had been on Harry’s wish list to read ever since he’d seen it in the Flourish and Blotts owl mail catalog Hermione had been perusing one evening in the library after they’d finished their homework. Too grateful for words, he turned and hugged her tightly, saying more than he could ever say out loud.

“You’re welcome, Harry,” she said softly as she hugged him back, happy her present had made _him_ so happy.

She still wasn’t particularly enthralled with Quidditch herself, or perhaps it was more the danger she saw it put Harry in year in and year out, but she knew he loved it more than almost anything else in the world, the one thing he excelled at that no one could say was given to him. So when he’d eagerly read the description of the book over her shoulder, she’d ordered it the very next day (along with the dozen books she’d already earmarked for herself for a little light reading in her spare time), to give to him for Christmas.

Harry eventually let her go, and reached down to pick up his next present, a badly wrapped one obviously from the gamekeeper. Inside was a giant box of sweets from Honeydukes, including Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans, Chocolate Frogs, Drooble's Best Blowing Gum, and Fizzing Whizbees, all amongst Harry’s favorites. Harry opened a chocolate frog each for him and Hermione to munch on, before continuing to open the rest of his gifts.

Sirius had gotten him a knife that could supposedly unlock any lock and undo any knot, something Harry ruefully thought he really could have used the night his name came out of the Goblet of Fire, when he couldn’t get the Gryffindor banner Lee Jordan had tied around his neck undone as he was trying to talk with Ron when he’d gotten back up to the dorm. He immediately tucked it away in his robes, so he’d always have it with him whenever he inevitably needed it.

The next gift he opened was from Ron, a bulging bag of Dungbombs. “Is this supposed to be a gift, or a threat?” he asked in a slightly confused tone as he held up the package for Hermione to see. “It’s from Ron, and honestly I could see it as being either way.”

“Knowing Ron, I think he actually thinks you’d like this,” answered Hermione, taking the bag from him to look at closer. “So I’m going with gift to try to get back in your good graces. Anyway, I don’t think he even knows what passive-aggressive is in the first place — he's always gone straight up aggressive when it comes to me, at least.”

The final gift Harry opened was from the redheads’ mother, the yearly sweater she sent him, along with a large number of mince pies she’d made.

“Do you think she’s heard we’re not friends with Ron anymore?” Harry asked as he unfolded the green sweater with a dragon stitched onto the front. “Someone clearly told her about the first task, or else she read about it in the Daily Prophet.”

“That’s the weirdest thing though, Harry,” replied Hermione pensively. “I’ve taken and read the Daily Prophet every day since I learned I was a witch and learned that the Daily Prophet existed, and neither Rita Skeeter nor anyone else wrote any article in the days following the first task saying what happened or giving the results of it. In fact, other than Rita’s one article after your name came out, there hasn’t been a peep about the entire tournament. Because if there had been, like say over the summer to let everyone know it was happening this year, I would have known about it before Dumbledore told us at the Opening Feast. But I didn’t. I found out when you, and Ron, and the twins, and everyone else in this school found out. For supposedly being the biggest event in wizarding history in the past couple centuries or whatever Dumbledore touted it as, the only news source in the entirety of the Isles has been completely mum on it. I hadn’t specifically thought of it before now because we’re living though it, but it’s all really weird now that I do think about it.

"But coming back to Mrs Weasley, it means someone did have to tell her, unless she’s got another news source I’m unaware of. Which I’m guessing wasn’t the twins or Ron unless they failed to mention that you’re no longer friends with Ron anymore, since she still sent you her normal present — unless it’s an attempt to pressure you into becoming friends with Ron again by making you feel guilty about receiving a gift and not reciprocating it at least through friendship with her son, which could be a possibility. But my best guess would be that Charlie told her, since he was in charge of the nesting mother that understandably tried to kill you."

After a second, she added suddenly, "Oh — and did you get Ron a present this year?”

“No,” replied Harry shaking his head. “I found this Chudley Cannon hat I know he would’ve liked, but as I saw it after my name came out and he’d stopped being my friend, I didn’t get it. You?”

“Nope,” replied Hermione. "No way I was going to get him anything after how he's treated you since your name came out."

They sat there in silence for several seconds, before Hermione pointed at an envelope still lying on the floor that Harry didn’t seem to be in any hurry to pick up, and asked, “What’s that one?"

“My relatives,” answered Harry, still just staring at the envelope, wondering why they even bothered — unless Hedwig pecked them until they gave her something to give to him, or else were trying to intentionally be cruel and remind him that they hated his very existence.

But eventually he did pick it up and open it, to find a single tissue.

“Shame owl mail is free for them, or there’s no way they would have paid postage to send this by Royal Mail — it’s worth far less than the stamp would cost, and then I wouldn't have to even receive it.”

Hermione wrapped her arms around him, leaning into his side and resting her head on his shoulder. She knew there was nothing she could say to make up for his relatives’ behavior, but she _could_ show him that she would always be there for him no matter what, so that’s what she did.

Eventually though, they wandered back down to the common room, where the twins talked them into joining the after lunch snowball fight they were arranging. So after eating again and a quick stop by the kitchens to give Winky her Christmas present, they headed out onto the still mostly pristine grounds, where they threw and dodged balls of snow until the early-setting winter sun drove them back inside soon after the sun set behind the mountains at three-thirty in the afternoon. Deciding to avoid the overcrowded Gryffindor common room, Harry and Hermione settled in the completely empty library, where Harry began reading _Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland_ , and Hermione opened _Advanced Runes for the Overeager Sixth Year_ to the furthest page she’d been on.

Several hours later at seven o’clock, an hour before the Yule Ball was set to open, Hermione looked over at Harry and commented, “We should probably think about starting to get ready sometime soon."

“I suppose,” replied Harry, closing his book and setting it down. “What do you have in mind?"

“Want to meet back up in the common room at fifteen till? By the time we actually get up and walk back over there and up to our dorms, that should give us twenty minutes or so to get ready and back down, and then we’ll still have plenty of time to make it down to the entrance hall by eight.”

Harry contemplated her plan for several seconds, before finally saying slowly, “Actually, Hermione…I have a slightly different idea in mind if you’re open to it.”

“I’m all ears,” replied Hermione.

“Well, I was thinking that maybe I should actually be waiting for you in the entrance hall. Because if we walk in together, maybe half the people down there will turn and look at us. But if you walk down the Grand Staircase alone in your stunning dress robes — which yes, I know I haven’t seen them yet, but I already know they’ll be stunning — the prettiest girl in the castle clearly walking down to meet someone, every eye in the entire castle will be on you, and everyone will be looking to see who you landed. Of course, then they’ll see it’s just me, but for a few moments at least you’ll be the center of the entire school’s attention, the star of the Yule Ball, the envy of every girl and making every guy jealous that he didn’t think to ask you first.”

“Oh, Harry!” cooed Hermione. “But I’m pretty sure it’s the other way around — no one’s going to become envious _until_ I attach myself to your arm, the youngest champion and co-leader after the first task.”

“Agree to disagree,” replied Harry with a smile. “But you’ll do it?”

“Gladly, Harry,” answered Hermione. “You know I don’t generally like being the center of attention, and I know you hate it, and of course it’s just going to fuel what Ron already thinks he knows about you being an attention-slut, but for once I wouldn’t mind standing out. Even a know-it-all, bushy-haired bookworm like me is still a girl, and can’t turn down the opportunity to be the center of attention every once in a while if it’s being the center of attention for a good reason. So absolutely, Harry, even if I think you’re exaggerating just how much attention people will give me.”

Plan settled, Hermione packed their books away in her bag and they meandered back to the common room, where they found almost exclusively guys left, all the other girls having hidden themselves away in their dorms hours before to change their looks from what they’d been when the guy they were going out with had asked them out.

Bidding goodby to Hermione for the moment, Harry headed up to his own dorm room to throw on his dress robes and head down to the entrance hall to wait on her.

Upstairs he found Ron, Seamus, and Dean staring at Ron's dress robes, where they lay on his bed looking like they’d been massacred by a pair of rogue scissors. Harry briefly wondered how Ron had managed to fail a severing charm so miserably to result in that, but he certainly wasn’t about to stop and ask, as he had no interest in getting involved in anything but Hermione in the entrance hall in twenty minutes. So he breezed past them all, grabbing his own robes out of his trunk and quickly throwing them on, before heading into the bathroom to determine after one quick look in the mirror that his hair wasn’t even worth trying to deal with without a spell by Hermione. He quickly headed back out and down the stairs before any of the other boys could try to engage him in any conversation, and through the now mostly empty common room and out the portrait hole.

And so now he stood alone in the crowding entrance hall, waiting for his date to arrive to steal the show.

In order to pass the time, he began looking around him, to see who was going with whom. He’d only been doing so for a few minutes when Ron in all his frayed cuffs glory hurried up to him, clearly eager to show everyone around that he was best of friends with the first place champion.

"Find a partner, mate?" he asked cheerfully, as if they spoke to each other all the time.

“Yes — she should be here in a minute or two," replied Harry politely as he continued to scan the crowds around him.

"Who'd you get? Is she pretty?" asked Ron.

_Of course that’s what the redhead would be concerned about — if she was pretty or not_. Harry wanted to completely ignore Ron’s question about whether she was pretty or not, and only say that he thought she had a wonderful personality and was someone he’d enjoy spending the evening with, but it was Hermione — he couldn’t help but brag on her when he had the chance, and he really did think she was the prettiest girl in the castle in his eyes. So he did both.

" _I_ think she’s beautiful,” he answered, finally looking directly at his former friend. “But more importantly she’s the nicest girl I’ve ever met, and I can’t wait get to spend the next four hours with her. And you'll see her in a minute, so don't ask — you can find out with everyone else.”

As he looked at his dormmate, Harry noticed that the redhead didn’t seem to be with anyone, so he continued on politely, “Did you ever ask anyone to come with you?”

“Well, you know, I eventually decided I’d just come solo and play the field once I got here,” answered Ron cockily. “Find some pretty girls who didn’t get asked by anyone, some girls who left their boring dates here at the party, and dance with them. No reason to limit myself to just one girl, when there’s a whole castle full.”

_So every girl he desperately asked at the last minute turned him down_ , translated Harry to himself as he listened to the redhead’s ridiculousness. But before either of them could say anything more, there were several low whistles and gasps, and most of the crowd turned towards the Grand Staircase.

Harry turned as well.


	8. Chapter 8

At the top of the staircase stood Hermione, in periwinkle-blue robes, looking nothing short of stunning.

Harry's jaw dropped, as did most of the other guys' and half of the girls'. As Hermione gracefully descended the marble staircase (that was nowhere near as grand as the girl descending it), she smiled shyly at Harry, making Harry's look of shock and awe turn into a shy smile of his own.

Ron turned to Harry to comment yet again about wondering who she was going with, when he took in Harry’s lost to the world look and finally put two and two together, realizing the truth. Staring back and forth between the two of them for a long second, Ron suddenly exploded.

"She's going with _YOU_!?” he screamed, causing everyone around them to turn and stare at him. “How could you betray me like that?! When you know _I_ asked her out!!!"

Fortunately at that moment the twins arrived out of thin air, and firmly grasping Ron by each arm, dragged him away before he could say anything more that would permanently destroy his friendship with everyone forever, and possibly get him punched or slapped by either Harry or Hermione.

But Harry and Hermione weren’t paying any attention to Ron at the moment, too engrossed in each other to care what insults their former friend was hurling at them.

"You look beautiful," said Harry in quiet amazement as Hermione walked down the last couple steps and joined him where he stood.

"Thanks," she replied shyly, blushing slightly as she looped her arm around his. Then looking over towards where the twins had drug Ron off to the side, she added with a nod in his direction, "I guess Ron finally figured out who I was going with."

"And seems less than pleased by it," replied Harry with a sigh.

But before either of them could say anything more about it, they heard Professor McGonagall call out loudly across the entrance hall, "Champions over here, please!", so they left Ron and his petty bitching behind, and hurried over to where their Head of House was standing next to the door leading into the Great Hall.

The Deputy Headmistress looked over at Harry to make sure he’d obeyed her order and brought himself a date to open the dance with, before staring speechless at the image of perfection on his arm. Then she recognized the girl and stared even harder — the bookworm had turned into a queen.

But as the three champions walked over with their dates and joined them, she remembered that she had a ball to open, and told them all to wait to the side so everyone else could go in before them. She then quickly opened the doors and ushered all the plebes inside, many of whom turned to stare a little longer in disbelief at Hermione as they passed by.

Sally-Anne and Lavender both gave her bright smiles as they passed by, glad their doormmate finally dressed up to show herself off for once. Ginny scowled in unflattering disbelief as she sulked in next to Neville, giving Harry a scathing glare as well. The Slytherin duo of Pansy and Draco gaped and failed to throw any insults respectively, which was about the closest thing to compliments that could ever be expected from Snakes. But Ron refused to even look in their direction, though the distinct scowl on his face was impossible to miss.

Once everyone was inside and seated, Professor McGonagall finally allowed the three champions, Harry, and their dates to enter. A sizable portion of the Great Hall applauded as they walked in, but there were also plenty of boos from the Slytherin table that Harry assumed were for himself, and more than a few catcalls, though Harry wasn’t sure if these were more for Fleur or Hermione — it was kind of hard to tell who anything was for with them all walking in together.

Grateful to Hermione for taking the time over the past week and a half to teach him how to dance, even just for how it had built up his confidence in general without having had to dance in front of everyone yet, Harry confidently walked in with Hermione proudly walking next to arm in arm.

They had intentionally taken the last spot in the procession so the actual three champions and their dates could go in first, and it gave Harry a good opportunity to look at the crowd as they walked in without having everyone staring back at him, since everyone was paying most of their attention to Fleur in the lead and then the other two champions between her and him. And as he looked, he saw that Ron had taken a seat at the table closest to the top table where the judges were already seated and the champions were headed for, though whether out of an attempt to not to let Hermione any further out of his sight than he had to, or to be as near to the center of attention as he possibly could be, Harry didn’t know. And despite having refused to even look in their direction as he passed by them in the entrance hall on his way into the Great Hall a few minutes earlier, Ron was now sitting there glaring at both him and Hermione with a look of such pure loathing that it seemed better suited for a Malfoy than someone who’d up until two months earlier claimed to be their best friend.

Finally nearing the table they were to eat at, Harry realized that Mr Crouch wasn’t there with the rest of the judges. Instead, Ron’s pompous arse older brother Percy was, occupying the seat he assumed was supposed to be Mr Crouch’s. As he and Hermione got close enough to choose their seats, the redhead pulled out the empty chair next to him and gave Harry a very pointed look. Harry took the hint, and sat down on the complete opposite side of the table, having absolutely no desire to be nearer to a Weasley that didn’t have an identical twin than he had to be.

Once they were settled, Hermione leaned over and whispered into Harry's ear, “I wonder why Mr Crouch isn’t here, and Percy’s taken his place.”

“Doesn’t Percy work for Crouch or something?” whispered Harry back.

“Yes — he works directly for Mr Crouch in the Department of International Magical Cooperation,” answered Hermione. “But that only explains why he’s here instead of someone else, not why anyone besides Mr Crouch is here in the first place.”

Harry nodded, not really having anything to add to the discussion, and not really caring anyway. He really didn’t give a rat’s powdered dried spleen why Mr Crouch wasn’t there, and certainly wasn’t about to ask Percy about it and get his ear talked off all meal about cauldron bottoms for his efforts.

Fortunately at that moment he heard Dumbledore tell his plate “Pork chops”, and realized they were supposed to order their meals by telling their plates what they wanted. Soon across the entire hall everyone was saying whatever they wanted off the menus at their plates, and food was appearing at their commands. For a long time conversation was at a minimum as everyone ate, not having had a Christmas tea that year and it being after eight o’clock by then.

On the other side of Hermione from Harry was Viktor Krum and his Durmstrang date, and as the meal began to wind down, Hermione struck up a conversation with them about Durmstrang, asking about how it was similar and different from Hogwarts, ever curious to learn something new (or at least from a new perspective, as she’d read numerous books about Durmstrang since she’d heard they were coming to visit for the tournament). So as she talked to them, Harry turned to his other side, and asked Fleur how Christmas at Beauxbatons was compared to Christmas at Hogwarts. She animatedly told him all about the decorations they had each year back at home, making Harry feel like Beauxbatons would be a wonderful place to spend Christmas as well, before highly complimenting Hogwarts and their Christmas decorations. In fact, the only complaint she had about Hogwarts was Peeves, the resident poltergeist. And Harry had to agree with her there — in the three and a half years he’d been in the castle, he’d never once seen or heard of a single redeeming factor about the spirit. A fact of which he told her, leading to them swapping their worst Peeves encounter stories with each other as they vented about the irritating ghost.

But eventually all the food across the Hall was consumed, and it was time for the opening dance. As the champions and their dates stood up, Harry stood up with them and held his hand out to Hermione.

* * *

Harry and Hermione had been dancing for over an hour when they decided to take a break and catch their breaths.

Grabbing a couple butterbeers, they walked outside into the rose garden to have a little peace and quiet from the crowded dance floor and Great Hall. The garden had been magically warmed to protect the overabundance of flowers and bushes that now decorated it from the harsh winter weather around them, and seemed to have been magically enlarged as well, as it was many times bigger than the courtyard they frequently hung out in during break between classes. And to set it all off, the twinkling of fairies made it look like they were surrounded by low-flying stars, setting a very romantic mood.

They wandered through the garden hand in hand, through the nice looking but not too expensive shrubbery, which had been placed at slightly different heights to get a two layer effect with a little path running down the middle. Pausing in front of the fountain when they eventually wandered upon it, they watched the moonlight sparkle off the errant droplets of water that cascaded through the air and landed on the surrounding foliage like liquid diamonds.

Looking over at Hermione, Harry reached out and brushed a stray hair out of her face, tucking it back behind her ear. As his finger brushed across her skin, Hermione felt herself shiver slightly, despite the warmth of the courtyard.

Without thinking, she leaned forwards and softly pressed her lips against his.

A second later, her brain caught up to what she was doing, and she pulled back. But only enough to look at him, waiting to gauge his reaction before she pulled back completely. When he appeared to just be more surprised than anything, and he didn't make any indication that he _didn't_ want her kissing him, she brought her lips back to his with more purpose. This time she could feel his lips tentatively moving against hers, so she slid her hand up his back and eventually brought it to rest on his cheek.

"Sorry," she said softly when they finally broke apart to breathe again, her eyes dropping slightly, unable to look him in the eye. "I've wanted to do that for a while now."

Harry covered her hand with his pressing it up against his cheek, while his other hand gently lifted her chin up, forcing her to look at him again. But unable to think of any words to assure her that he didn't mind in the least, he settled for bringing his lips back down on hers and showing her.

"Don't be sorry,” he said softly as they broke apart for the third time. "I take it this means you like me?"

"I wouldn't have accepted your invitation to the Yule Ball if I didn't," replied Hermione sincerely, leaning into his chest and nestling her head under his chin. Harry readily wrapped his arms around her, holding her close.

But after a while, Hermione asked quietly, "Why _did_ you invite me? I mean, I know Professor McGonagall held you back after class that day to tell you about needing a date for the Ball, but then you just immediately asked me to go with you without seeing if anyone else was interested in going with you first. Why?”

Harry thought for a second of the best way to answer her question. He’d invited her because he’d seen her standing there in the hallway and it just clicked, but it was the reason _why_ it’d clicked, and why he’d only become more convinced of the rightness of his in the moment decision as he thought over it later after asking her, that he knew she really wanted to know.

"Remember after the first task, when you warned me about Ron not being friends with me again? That made me begin thinking about who my true friends were — who would stand next to me no matter what happened. I began realizing, even if I didn’t consciously realize it quite yet, that it didn't really matter what happened between me and Ron, because I already had someone. Someone who had never betrayed me in all the years I’d known her. And then when I saw you standing there in the corridor waiting on me to come out so you could walk down to the Great Hall with me for lunch, it all finally just clicked. And I saw that the one person who really mattered to me, who was always next to me even when I didn’t want to admit it, was you."

"The Firebolt," Hermione said quietly to herself.

"Yes, the Firebolt," confirmed Harry, before continuing on. “So as soon as I realized that, I also realized that you were the one person I could actually enjoy going to this ball with. From the moment Professor McGonagall told me I had to have someone, I had been dreading it, having absolutely no interest in having a date. But seeing you, I realized maybe that wasn’t quite so true, that maybe there was _one_ person I would be privileged to have as my date to what otherwise was beginning to seem like quite the drudge. And so I immediately asked you, before anyone else could, knowing without a doubt that there was no one else in the castle I’d rather go with."

Hermione was silent for so long that Harry eventually took a step back and looked down at her worriedly, just to find tears trickling down her face.

“Sorry, I — that’s just the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me,” she choked out, reclosing the gap and burying her head in his chest.

Harry held her tight, both of them silent for quite a while, until a nagging in the back of Harry’s mind finally had to be addressed. “Earlier, when you said you like me and kissed me — does that mean you'll be my girlfriend?"

Hermione nodded, before smiling up at him.

“But only if you'll be my boyfriend.”


	9. Chapter 9

_“Does that mean you’ll be my girlfriend?”_

_“Only if you'll be my boyfriend.”_

Harry smiled at her, and said, "It would be my honor.”

“Then why don’t you show me just how much of an honor it would be by snogging me senseless,” smirked Hermione in reply, looking at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

“I don’t know much about kissing, never having done it before, but I can try,” answered Harry. “Just might take a while to get it down.”

“I’m counting on it, and we’ve got plenty of time before the Ball ends,” smirked Hermione. “Anyway, I don’t either — that’s what makes it fun. Two horny, inexperienced teenagers learning together — and trying not to get caught by the Bat,” she finished in a rush, grabbing his hand and dragging him down the path.

Harry only just briefly caught a glimpse of the Slytherin Head of House stalking towards the fountain they’d just been standing at, before he was jerked around the corner of a particularly high set of shrubs, as Hermione tried to get them to safety.

“Sorry about that,” she panted out when she finally brought them to a stop in a hidden clump of bushes on the far side of the garden. “He did _not_ look like he was in the mood to let a little innocent snogging going unpunished — not that I’d exactly say he’s _ever_ looked in the mood for it, but he really didn’t then.”

“I’m just thankful you saw him,” replied Harry gratefully.

He was silent for a second, before finally asking, “So about that learning…?”

“Get over here and snog me, you silly boy,” laughed Hermione, before launching herself on top of him before he even had a chance to try to move towards her first.

~HP~

The spot Hermione had found them proved to be a good one, as they weren’t bothered by professor or other student for as long as they stayed there.

Harry felt like he could have continued forever, exploring Hermione’s mouth and the strange but pleasant new sensations doing so made him feel, but Hermione had eventually pulled back saying they really needed to get back inside before it became too late, and anyway she’d like another few dances before the night was over. So they headed back inside, dancing for another thirty minutes until the Weird Sisters finally twung their last twang.

They both noticed Ron sitting alone in a far corner of the Great Hall glaring at them, but neither of them mentioned it to the other, and they certainly didn’t feel inclined to go find out what his problem was, other than the fact Hermione hadn’t been available when Ron had finally realized he could ask her out and it had all been due to Harry having already invited her.

In truth, Ron actually believed that Hermione really had still been inviteless when he’d asked, which was why she’d refused to tell him who she was going with. And it was only sometime _after_ that that she’d agreed to go with Harry since he also didn’t have a date yet, and he had either tricked her or used his champion fame to get her to go with _him_ , instead of agreeing to go with Ron who’d asked first. But as Ron’s thought process was such that, if they didn’t already know he wasn’t going to tell them, he never approached them and just sat there trying to glare holes through them every time he saw them.

At midnight, the Weird Sisters finally wrapped up, and the Professors began shunting everyone off to their commons rooms, despite pleas and beggings by many of the students to keep the party roaring for another few hours. But the professors were having nothing of it, and as the crowds began wending their ways through the castle to their respective common rooms, Harry and Hermione followed at the tail end of the Gryffindor crowd, up to Gryffindor Tower and their awaiting beds.

They _did_ however duck into an unused classroom at the beginning of the seventh floor corridor leading to the portrait of the fat lady, to get in a last minute snogging before going to bed. They would have simply done it in the common room before they headed up their separate staircases, but they didn’t particularly feel like having everyone watch them, and make a big ado about it when they were trying to just go to bed. So they simply stopped off in the abandoned classroom for a few minutes to get it in before continuing on down the hall to their common room.

But when they did finally step through the portrait hole, Hermione was immediately verbally assaulted by Ron, the only person left in the otherwise completely empty common room.

“I can’t believe you went with _this_ liar instead of me!” he bellowed at her, pointing accusingly at Harry.

Hermione pulled up short, staring in disbelief at the redhead’s audacity. After several seconds, she crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him, more than fed up with the redhead and his attitude about girls and dates surrounding the Yule Ball.

"Well, if you don't like the girl you want to go with going with someone else instead, you know what the solution is, don't you?” she finally growled.

"Oh yeah?" Ron yelled back. "What's that?"

"Next time there's a ball, ask the girl you want to go with before someone else does, and not as a last resort because you're waiting for the hottest girl in the castle to come to you!”

Harry noticed that she specifically never said that he should ask _her_ , as Ron was clearly talking about, merely that he should ask the girl he wanted to go with, but her point still stood. It wouldn’t have been her he would have asked, as Ron had had no actual interest in going with her even when he did finally ask, only that she was a girl and he didn’t have one, but the redhead _could_ have asked a girl he really would have wanted to go out with. And if he’d asked her soon after they’d all been told about the Ball, she could have still been available, and he could have had a good time at the Yule Ball. But instead, he'd waited on someone hot to come to him, before scrambling at the last minute to try to find anyone who would be willing to go with him and failing, and thus spending the entire Ball being jealous of someone who _had_ asked the person they wanted to go with right after being told of the Ball’s existence.

Ron merely gaped at her in reply, until Hermione finally turned to Harry and said crisply, “Night, Harry — see you in the morning,” before disappearing up the girls’ staircase to her dorm.

Once she was gone, Ron sputtered in the direction she’d disappeared in, “Well — well — that just proves — completely missed the point — !"

Harry didn't bother replying, knowing nothing was going to be getting through anyway. And he just wanted to get to bed too much at the moment to speak his mind right then, and more likely than not get rewarded his own row with the redhead for his efforts — but he personally thought that Hermione had the point much better than Ron had.


	10. Chapter 10

Boxing Day morning, Harry and Hermione wandered down from their dorms much later than they normally did.

Everyone else had apparently had the same idea of sleeping in, as there were only a few other people milling about in the common room when Harry walked in, quickly spotting Hermione standing by the window holding and petting Crookshanks as she looked out over the frosty grounds. It was a sure sign that she’d only been there for a few minutes, as on the mornings she didn’t go watch the sunrise, she always spent five or ten minutes just looking out the window, enjoying the beauty that Hogwarts provided and the grumpiness her kneazle provided, before starting reading or researching or doing any homework. As he approached her, Harry saw her smile despite not having turned around at all to see that he was coming — she simply knew, like always.

“Morning, boyfriend,” she said quietly once he was near enough for him to hear her.

“Morning, girlfriend,” replied Harry as he joined her looking out the window and absentmindedly reached over to scratch Crookshanks behind the ears. They stood there like that for several minutes, before Harry finally said, “Hungry?”

“I could eat,” answered Hermione.

She set down Crookshanks down on the couch, and they started to head out. When they were almost to the portrait hole, they heard the twins call them over from where the redheaded pair was huddled conspiratorially in the corner. They should have known something was up when the twins were already awake before them, as the twins weren’t renowned for being particularly early risers without reason, but as Harry and Hermione were still slightly sleepy from staying up so late the night before, they didn’t question it. And so they made their way over, completely forgetting to pay attention to where they were going,

And walked straight under an innocent looking clump of mistletoe that had been stuck to the ceiling of the common room with a sticking charm a week before.

However, nothing was ever as innocent as it looked at Hogwarts — staircases had trap steps, doors weren't really doors, tapestries often led to secret passages, and the greenery could have secret powers. This unobtrusive little plant was no different — it was magical mistletoe, a far more sinister plant than its muggle counterpart.

You see, magical mistletoe had a symbiotic relationship with Nargles. Unlike muggle mistletoe, under which muggles voluntarily kissed, magical mistletoe, when in full bloom, trapped its unsuspecting victims beneath it _until_ they kissed. Which while not a problem for any happy couple that happened to wander under its spell, those less inclined to lock lips were in trouble. And whilst the unhappy victims were stuck beneath the plant, the Nargles that lived inside the mistletoe would infest the bickering pair.

When the mistletoe had first been affixed to the ceiling a week before Christmas, word had quickly spread to avoid that section of the common room if you didn’t want to go tongue tangoing. However, in their post-Christmas sleepiness, neither Harry nor Hermione were paying attention to where they were walking as they went over to see what the twins wanted. So a second later, they found themselves stuck underneath the offending greenery, with only one way out.

The twins walked over, not-so-innocent smirks playing across their faces.

"Would you look at that," said Fred.

"How very unfortunate," replied George, sounding anything but displeased, as they both came to a stop right in front of the trapped pair.

So as not to have to admit that she'd fallen for the twins' trick, Hermione rolled her eyes and pulled Harry to her, snogging him senseless.

As the twins were whistling and catcalling the amorous pair, Ron chose that moment to come down from the boys dorm, unnoticed by any of them. Seeing the lip-locked lovers (but missing the fancy, free-flowing, flowering flora above their heads — not that it would have made any difference to him), he froze in shock. Unfortunately for everyone, however, his temporary paralysis lasted less time than their kiss, and he screamed, "Oi!"

Hearing the minor explosion, Harry and Hermione languidly broke apart, before stepping out from under the mistletoe to avoid being infected by any Nargles.

“ _Yes...?_ " said Hermione coolly, giving Ron a look that clearly said 'think twice about what you're about to say'.

Ron, however, thought at most once, and likely not even that.

"What the bloody hell were you doing!?"

"Kissing," replied Hermione, her tone unchanged from before.

"Why were you kissing _him_!?" yelled Ron. "You're supposed to end up with _me_!"

"I'm _supposed_ to end up with _you_!?" exclaimed Hermione in complete flabbergastation, her voice rising. "You didn't even realize I _was_ a girl until a week ago!"

"That completely misses the point!" bellowed Ron. "You end up with me, and Harry ends up with Ginny! Mum's always told us so!"

Suddenly Mrs Weasley's behavior the past three summers he'd spent at the Burrow made a lot more sense to Harry, as did her continued Christmas present this year despite him no longer being friends with her son.

"Wait!" exclaimed Harry loudly, as yelling seemed to be the only acceptable way to be part of this conversation. "How could Mrs Weasley have always been telling you that you'd end up with Hermione, when she'd never even heard of Hermione before three years ago, didn’t meet her at all until Diagon Alley two and a half years ago, and didn’t spend any extended time with her until six months ago?"

"So she added Hermione three years ago, what difference does that make?" snarled Ron savagely, turning on Harry. "It doesn't change the fact that her and me are supposed to end up together!"

"I am not _supposed_ to end up with anyone," growled Hermione threateningly.

“That still doesn't give you any reason to be kissing _him_!” shouted Ron in reply, turning back on Hermione. "He's probably been using his fame to snog every girl in the castle!"

"Just because that’s what _you_ would do if _you_ were champion, doesn't mean _Harry's_ been kissing any other girls!"

"Fine! So maybe he hasn't kissed any other girls, but that doesn't give him the right to kiss you!” shouted Ron, changing tack at the speed of light.

"Ronald Bilius Weasley! Harry is my boyfriend, he can damn well kiss me as much as he bloody well likes!" shouted Hermione, fury radiating off her in waves as she pulled out her wand and took a threatening step towards the redhead.

"Okay, full name and wand, I think we need to separate you two," interrupted Fred, stepping in between Ron and Hermione before Hermione jinxed Ron into tomorrow, or at the very least the hospital wing.

"Why don't you two go get breakfast," added George, grabbing Harry and Hermione's arms and pulling them towards the portrait hole.

As soon as they were through the portrait, before it’d even fully closed behind them, Hermione stormed off towards the Great Hall, muttering under her breath what sounded like a list of curses she'd like to use on Ron.

Harry ran to catch up with her.

"Hey," he said softly when he had, gently putting a hand on her shoulder as he caught up with her. "Ignore him. It doesn't matter what he thinks. He's just jealous I got the prettiest girl in the castle."

Stopping when she felt Harry's hand land on her shoulder, Hermione turned and rolled her eyes at her boyfriend. "Ignoring the fact we both know I'm not the prettiest girl in the castle even when there isn't a Veela around, he's not jealous that I'm with you instead of him. He’s jealous that, in his mind, you've taken something else away from him that he thinks should be his, and something that would bring him fame and attention, which is all he really cares about. It’s only the _idea_ of me being with him, and everyone knowing I’m with him, that would matter to him — not me myself. If he could have a robot that looked just like me that he could show off on his arm, he’d be just as happy with that — and if it couldn't bug him about not doing his homework, he’d be even happier than with the real me."

"So you really think Mrs Weasley told him that you would be his one day?"

"And that Ginny would get you, and that everyone would end up as one big happy Weasley family," answered Hermione with a nod. "And based on what Ron said, she had you picked out for Ginny long before either of you ever started Hogwarts, and definitely before ever meeting you. And while I'm sure every wizarding mother has probably dreamed of having their daughter marry the great and famous Boy-Who-Lived one day, Mrs Weasley took it to the extreme of instilling the idea as a guaranteed fact into her children. And then when I became the 'brightest witch of the age', it only made sense to put me with Ron to collect me into the family as well.”

Harry didn’t even know what to say to all of that, so he didn’t say anything. It seemed so impossible that anyone could be like that, and yet it did explain an awful lot.

But eventually Hermione said, “It’s a lot to think about, I know. And I may not be entirely correct about all of it, but what I am correct about is the fact that I really am hungry now, so let’s go eat and we can think more about certain Weasleys sometime later — perhaps on the same day Snape hosts a birthday party for you and Neville."

Harry chuckled, and they resumed their walk down to the Great Hall and morning sustenance.

~HP~

They had only been eating for a few minutes when everyone's favorite ferret swaggered in, followed closely by his posse.

"Oh look, the Boy-Who-Lived and the Insufferable Know-It-All, madly in love," he drawled quietly enough for the entire hall to hear.

So in order to quickly stifle any rumors that they were romantically involved, Harry and Hermione leaned towards each other and languidly kissed, making sure anyone who looked in their direction would have plenty of time to see them.

Once they’d finally broken apart, Harry looked across the table at the Snakelet and asked innocently, "Whatever would give you that idea?"

Their blatant disregard for what he had been so sure would be a highly embarrassing rumor, left the ferret literally speechless. So after staring thunderstruck at the Golden Couple for several seconds, he finally walked away and sat down at the Slytherin table without uttering a single word.

"Bravo," came two voices at Harry and Hermione's outside ears.

The next moment, the twins had sat down on either side of them.

"That's how you stun a snake into silence," said Fred, grabbing a plate of sausages.

"We overheard him last night talking to his peeps about the fact you two went to the Ball together; we wondered how long it would take before he twisted it into you two dating to try and embarrass you," added George, grabbing some toast of the nearby plate.

"You don't think he knew we actually are dating when he said that?" asked Hermione, surprised.

"Definitely not," answered Fred, shaking his head. "No one knew you two were dating until you decided to show the entire Hall."

"Wait a minute," said Harry slowly. “Then how did _you_ know we were dating, in order to trick us under the mistletoe earlier? Because even you guys wouldn't force two people to kiss if you didn't know they were okay with it."

"We were getting pretty darn close, just to make you two finally realize your feelings for each other, but no — we saw you kissing by the fountain last night," answered George.

"Yeah, we'd followed you out there to convince some fairies to set a romantic mood around you guys, but it seemed you'd found your own perfect setting before we could help," added Fred.

“Then how do you know no one else saw us and knows as well?” asked Hermione curiously.

“Because do you two see everyone staring at you and whispering? Well, before you just snogged in front of the entire hall, that is — there are a lot of people looking this direction and whispering now,” answered George.

“And when we saw you, there wasn't anyone else nearby, and certainly not close enough to see you,” finished Fred.

“Well, they know now, that’s for sure, and everyone who isn’t currently here will probably know within the hour, given how gossip about me spreads,” replied Harry.

“We can guarantee it, if you like,” offered Fred.

“And completely free of charge, including any extra rumors you’d like spread with it,” added George.

“Thanks for the offer, but I think the news will make it around on its own just fine,” said Hermione. “Harry and I hadn’t really discussed it, but as neither of us like the spotlight I think we were trying to keep it low for a while — not that that’s going to happen now.”

“Oh, you’re long past zat,” came a recognizable voice floating across the table.

The four of them looked up to see Fleur sitting there, smiling brightly at Harry and Hermione.

“As soon as I walked in I started 'earing whispers zat ze Boy 'O Lived, Fourth TriWizard Champion, ze one and only 'Arry Potter 'imself, 'ad a girlfriend — and it was ze same girl ze Prophet rumored a month and a 'alf ago, and was reinforced last night,” continued Fleur. “I just wanted to come over and see if it was true, and congratulate you two.”

“Well thanks, and yes, it is true,” replied Hermione. “We’ve been getting closer ever since Harry’s name came out of the goblet and everyone started hating him and calling him a liar, and then last night we kissed and admitted our feelings for one another, and started dating — or officially started dating, as we’ve kind of been doing it without realizing it for the last couple months.”

“Well best of luck to you, and just wanted to say congratulations,” said Fleur, before standing up and starting to return to the Ravenclaw table where the rest of the Beauxbatons were sitting.

“Fleur — you could stay with us and eat, if you’d like,” Harry said quickly before she’d taken more than a step. “Hermione and I joined you at the Ravenclaw table once, even if it was by accident — you could stay here. You haven’t met the twins yet, anyway, and that’s always worth the time.”

Fleur turned back around, clearly surprised at having been invited to stay.

“If you’re sure I won’t be a bother,” she said hesitantly.

“Of course not!” said Hermione. “We’d be happy to have you here. And the twins really are a riot.”

“Zen I will,” answered Fleur, sitting back down. “So who are zese twins you both mentioned?”

“Fred. George,” said Harry, pointing at each in turn. “They’re the resident jokesters and pranksters of the castle, always good for lightening up the mood and throwing a fantastic party.”

“Pleasure to meet you,” replied Fleur, holding out her hand to each of them in turn to shake.

Harry, Hermione, the twins, and Fleur spent the rest of the morning getting to know each other better and recounting the twins’ greatest hits, eventually being joined by Luna Lovegood as well when she wandered in, and saw that Fleur was sitting with Harry and Hermione that morning instead of at the Ravenclaw table like normal.


	11. Chapter 11

Now that Christmas was over, the Second Task loomed much nearer than it had before Christmas break began.

Harry and Hermione had been trying to figure out the clue — or really what the clue even was supposed to be — ever since Bagman had told them about there being a clue following the first task, but so far they'd had no luck. They had opened the egg up several times in the weeks between the First Task and Christmas, in the Gryffindor common room or in Harry’s dorm room, but they had been limited to times when no one else was around to have to hear the incessant screeching, so as not to annoy all their fellow Gryffindors into murdering them in the middle of the night. And since Christmas, Harry and Hermione had started spending almost all of their free time in the library to avoid Ron, who still hadn't come to terms with Harry and Hermione's newfound relationship.

While limiting the amount of affection they could express, it did have the advantage that Harry had quickly caught up on all of his homework, and was no longer dragged down by mountains of parchments. And as his amount of work needing finished had gone down, his enjoyment of his classes had gone up, and along with it his speed of learning. While certainly not up to the level of Hermione, he had become one of the top students in their year, much to the delight of their teachers, and much to the ire of Ron, who preferred spending classes joking around, and then copying the answers off Hermione at the last minute. And now that Hermione was no longer letting him copy off of her, the redhead's ire was piling up at nearly the same rate as his homework.

But the library wasn’t an ideal place for figuring out the clue, as studying a screaming egg in her tranquil, _silent_ palace was greatly frowned upon by Madam Pince.

And it was a screaming egg.

But it was during one of the evenings of studying in the library that Cedric Diggory, the Hogwarts champion, walked up to them.

"Figured out your egg yet?" he asked quietly, looking around to make sure no one was listening.

"Not yet, no," replied Harry shaking his head, wondering why a fellow competitor was asking him if he’d figured out the clue yet. To the best of his knowledge, they weren’t supposed to be sharing or helping each other.

"Try taking a bath with it...in fact, use the Prefects' Bathroom; fourth door to the left of the statue of Boris the Bewildered on the fifth floor. Password's 'pine fresh'."

"Thanks, but why are you telling me this?" asked Harry, a look of confusion on his face. Why would Cedric be wanting to help him when they were competing against each other?

"I owe you one for telling me about the dragon," replied Cedric, before saying, "I gotta go, but just — remember what I said."

And with that he hurried away, leaving them alone again.

Harry and Hermione just looked at each other for several seconds, before Harry commented, “That was weird.”

“He kind of has a point though,” answered Hermione. “You did tell him about the dragon, which if he hadn’t known about he certainly wouldn’t have the thirty-eight points he currently does, so if he’s figured out his clue and thinks it’s something you really should know about beforehand, it makes since he would want to reciprocate."

“I guess. Do you really think it’s something as bad as a dragon again, though?” asked Harry.

“I certainly hope not,” replied Hermione. “I really don’t want to lose you right after we just started dating.” She paused for a second, before smirking, “Or anytime, I guess, but especially not now that I have someone to snog any time I like.”

“Except when Madam Pince is hovering around like a vulture,” said Harry with a slight smirk of his own.

“Yes, well, that is an unfortunate side effect of the fact Ron still refuses to accept us, and we’re too nice to shove it in his face in the common room. It definitely limits our affectionate time — but fortunately broom cupboards exist.”

“Three cheers for broom cupboards,” replied Harry, before asking, “But what about about this clue Cedric’s given us?”

“Since we’ll have to do it after hours so as not to run into any actual prefects, we need to plan it very carefully, as Snape won’t take being a champion as an excuse for being out of bounds. But I think we should definitely try it out, as we have nothing better to go on at the moment, and I don’t think he was trying to trick you or anything,” answered Hermione. “And I think we need to do it soon, so if we don’t figure out the clue there, we’ll still have time to try to figure it out some other way.”

So the remainder of that evening Harry and Hermione schemed and planned, working out all the details and minutia for a late night excursion to take a bath, putting the finishing touches on their stratagem just before Madam Pince walked over to kick them out of the library. Happy with their plan, Harry and Hermione walked hand in hand back to the Gryffindor common room, sharing a brief kiss outside the fat lady’s portrait before they entered.

~HP~

The following night, once the common room had emptied, Harry and Hermione donned Harry's invisibility cloak, and snuck out of the portrait hole.

Thanks to Hermione’s careful planning, and their use of the Marauder’s map to make sure no one was taking a midnight stroll down the hallways they needed, Harry and Hermione arrived at the statue of Boris the Bewildered safe and sound. Entering the Prefects’ Bathroom, they looked around and marveled at its extravagance.

"This is definitely worth becoming a prefect for, but how is this supposed to help us figure out the clue?" whispered Harry.

"Well, Cedric did say to take a bath with it, so I suppose we should start there," whispered Hermione back. There was no one else in there, but it was just the kind of place they couldn't help but whisper in.

Harry nodded his agreement, so they walked over to the sunken swimming pool, grabbing a couple fluffy towels off a pile on their way. After Harry set his golden egg down on top of the towels so it wouldn’t roll away, they spent several minutes testing and comparing the hundreds of golden taps, until they soon had the pool filled to the brim.

With nothing left to do, Harry walked back over to where they’d set the towels down by the edge of the pool, and pulled off his robes and shirt, leaving him standing there in just his bathing suit. Hermione, who’d followed him over, did the exact same thing.

Harry had seen her next to him out of the corner of his eye, and just felt her presence next to him in general, so when he finished, he looked over at her. And thinking back on it later after his brain turned back on, he knew he should have expected what he saw, or at least something similar, but he hadn’t. And his jaw dropped for it.

For Hermione stood there in a pale turquoise bikini, looking serenely out over the pool. And Harry thought he’d never seen such a picture of grace and beauty and perfection in his life.

When she turned to see if he was ready yet and caught him staring at her, she blushed slightly and smiled shyly at him, before turning and diving into the warm water. After a second to return his jaw to its normal position, Harry dove in after her. She was already halfway across the pool when he resurfaced, so he hurriedly swam after her to catch up.

She paused at the far end to let him finish catching up, and asked, “Care to swim a few laps before we start working on the egg? It’s been since vacation last summer that I’ve been able to swim.”

“Of course,” replied Harry, and they proceeded to swim several laps of the long pool, before eventually returning to the egg, and the reason they were there in the first place.

But as they leaned up against the edge of the pool, before Harry could pick the egg up off of the towel he’d laid it down on, Hermione asked, “I have to ask, Harry — is this the first time you’ve ever seen a girl in a bikini?”

Harry nodded. “I mean, I’ve seen them on tv or in movies or something, so I know what they are, but no — I’ve never seen one in person. The Dursleys never took me on vacation to the beach, or even to a pool or anything, where I might have seen one. And sorry for staring, I just couldn’t help it — you’re so beautiful.”

Hermione blushed again, and she knew she couldn’t blame it on the warmth of the water they were in — but thankfully Harry didn’t mention it.

“Thanks, Harry,” she said shyly, before continuing on more confidently, "And I wore it because I knew you would stare. I have a couple one-piece suits I could have worn instead if I’d chosen to, but I didn’t. You’re my boyfriend — you’re allowed to stare at your girlfriend when she’s showing off for you."

She paused for a second to give him time to absorb what she’d told him, knowing his upbringing had left him without certain norms she took for granted, before saying, “Now what about that egg?”

Since their feet could barely touch the bottom of the pool, the two of them tread water as Harry opened the egg. While the cacophony of screams echoing around the marble bathroom was quite spectacular, it unfortunately did nothing to help them solve the mystery, unless the clue was that the second task was going to be a complete headache. After several seconds of the awful din, Harry slammed the egg back shut, rubbing his temples as the echoes finally stopped bouncing around the marble walls.

"Get anything from that other than a headache?" he asked his girlfriend.

Hermione shook her head, staring thoughtfully at the offending ovoid of gold. "But Cedric did say to take a bath with it, not simply to open it in the Prefects’ bathroom, so I'm guessing the water has to have something to do with it. Maybe trying opening it underwater?"

Harry stuck the egg beneath the surface of the water, and opened it again. This time, at least, there was no wailing; however, there was no discernible clue, either. To Harry it just sounded like a mixture of garble and bubbles.

"It's a song, Harry! But I can't understand it," exclaimed Hermione excitedly, living up to her reputation as era-defining genius.

And with a splash, she disappeared under the water. Resurfacing a few seconds later, she excitedly motioned to Harry to go underwater as well, spluttering out, "Underwater, Harry! Underwater!"

Taking a deep breath, Harry plunged his head beneath the surface. To his great surprise, instead of the bubbles he could hear above the water, underneath he could hear a chorus of eerie voices singing to him from the egg in his hand. And they were singing some kind of song that he assumed must be the clue for the second task.

When they both resurfaced a few seconds later, Harry said, “Looks like we found the clue."

“Indeed — but even I can’t remember the whole thing from a single listen, or even two,” replied Hermione. “We’re going to have to go back down."

After several more trips up and down, they had finally memorized the song — or at least Hermione had, as Harry had been rather distracted staring at Hermione’s bikini-covered breasts. But since Hermione _had_ memorized it, Harry set the egg back down on the top towel, and he and Hermione started floating around in the water, trying to figure out what it all meant.

"Come seek us where our voices sound, we cannot sing above the ground," began Harry, floating on his back staring up at the ceiling.

"Since you had to open the egg underwater, that presumably means you have to go underwater," said Hermione. "I'm assuming the Black Lake, since they do like grandeur for this tournament."

"So I have to go into the Black Lake, to find something they've taken from me that I'll dearly miss. But who are they that can’t sing above the water and will be taking something from me? Who is it I'm searching for? I mean, surely not the giant squid."

"The squid's only one thing, Harry, and last time I asked him he wasn't too big on singing," chided Hermione, as she stared at the painting of the mermaid on the far wall. "But _they_ are."

Harry flipped over in the water to see what she was looking at. "Mermaids?"

"There's a whole colony of them at the bottom of the Black Lake. Which you'd know if you ever read _Hogwarts: A History_."

"I did!" exclaimed Harry indignantly, before mumbling, "Start to—must have missed that chapter."

Hermione merely rolled her eyes at him, before reciting the next verse of the song. “ 'An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took'. Simple enough — you have an hour to complete the second task."

“Ah yes, because surviving underwater for an hour is quite simple."

"I just meant we know what you have to do," replied Hermione, flicking water at him.

"But past an hour — the prospect's black; too late, it's gone, it won't come back," finished Harry. "So as if finding whatever they've taken in under an hour isn't enough, if we don't find it in time, we'll lose it forever."

"Sounds like it," answered Hermione gravely.


	12. Chapter 12

After swimming around for a while longer, just enjoying the pool they both hoped they’d be able to use whenever they pleased starting the following year, Harry and Hermione finally left the Prefects Bathroom and headed back towards Gryffindor Tower and their awaiting beds.

With the invisibility cloak covering them both, and Hermione watching the Marauders’ Map as Harry carried the egg, they quickly made it back to the Gryffindor common room without incident. Filch and Mrs Norris were safely in their office, Peeves was on the other side of the castle, and none of the teachers’ dots were prowling the hallways that night in search of out of bounds students. It was a calm, quiet, normal one o’clock in the morning in the castle.

Once safely through the portrait hole, Harry and Hermione took off the invisibility cloak and wiped the Marauders’ map clear, not needing either any more. Then they shared a quick kiss where the stairs split to the boys and girls dorms, pleased with the success of their evening, and bid each other goodnight and headed off to their respective beds.

The good feelings from their successful mission were only destined to last for so long, however, as the first day of classes brought with it several unpleasant surprises — the first of which occurred at breakfast that morning as soon as the owls swooped in delivering the mail.

The entire front page of Hermione’s Daily Prophet was covered in an article about Hagrid, complete with the shiftiest photo of the gamekeeper the photographer could have possibly taken.

“Rita’s claimed her next victim,” Hermione said quietly to Harry after she’d read the title, laying the article out between them on the table so Harry could read the lies and misinformation along with her.

As she read the line about Mad-Eye’s hiring being 'a decision that caused many raised eyebrows at the Ministry of Magic’, Hermione grumbled to herself, “Well then, looks like it’s a good thing the Ministry _doesn’t_ have any authority at Hogwarts, doesn’t it?”, but the first section she directly pointed out to Harry was the sentence, 'Rubeus Hagrid, who admits to being expelled from Hogwarts in his third year, has enjoyed the position of gamekeeper at the school ever since, a job secured for him by Dumbledore’.

“You know, it _is_ really odd when you think about it that he got the gamekeeper position when he was only thirteen or fourteen years old,” she said as she pointed to the line. “He would have been younger than us, and already in charge of the extensive and dangerous grounds here at Hogwarts? I mean, I know you said he was physically big and already raising acromantula in a cupboard by the time Tom Riddle got him expelled to save his own sorry arse, but that still seems far too young to hold any position at a school. Also, I’m not really sure it can be called ‘admitted’ when everyone knows he was expelled. Or if it _was_ supposed to be some kind of secret, it’s the worst kept secret in the world.”

“I don’t know,” replied Harry. “Now that you mention it, _I_ certainly wouldn’t have been ready to hold a position like gamekeeper at the end of last year — hell, I don’t think I could now. But he’s never said anything about it to me."

In truth, Hagrid actually _hadn’t_ been the gamekeeper since he was expelled. Through at least the years the Weasley parents had attended Hogwarts, the gamekeeper had been one Apollyon ‘Ogg’ Pringle. Hagrid had only been the assistant from his time of expulsion until sometime after Mrs and Mr Weasley had graduated — but Hermione and Harry were unaware of this, and the article failed to mention it.

On the very next paragraph of the article, Hermione had to comment again, reading out the offending sentence.

“ 'Last year, however, Hagrid used his mysterious influence over the headmaster to secure the additional post of Care of Magical Creatures teacher, over the heads of many better-qualified candidates.' _That_ probably isn’t wrong — Hagrid never graduated school, and he has zero teaching experience or post-Hogwarts learning other than what he’s gotten himself into over the years as the Hogwarts groundkeeper, most of which have leant more towards a cell in Azkaban than a teaching position at the only school in the country,” she said, before quickly continuing, “And don’t be mad at me for saying that, I know you love him, in large part because he was the first respectable adult figure you ever had in your life, but you know I’m right about the teaching part. Just seriously think about our year and half of classes with him, and taking the fact he’s your friend out of the equation, honestly tell me he doesn’t leave a lot to be desired as a teacher.”

Harry half-heartedly glared at his girlfriend for a few seconds, before finally sighing. “Okay, fine — so maybe he doesn’t exactly match up to the level of some of the other professors here. But he’s better than Snape!”

“Well that’s hardly a challenge,” retorted Hermione with a roll of her eyes. “The lacewings we stewed in class last week would be better teachers than Snape.”

At this Harry couldn’t help but chuckle, before they both continued reading on, to see what other propaganda Rita was spreading unchecked to her readers — which of course turned out to be in the very next sentence.

“ 'Hagrid has been using his newfound authority to terrify the students in his care’?” scoffed Hermione. “I mean, sure, I agree that depending on your bigotry against Hagrid maybe he has brought 'a succession of horrific creatures’ to the class, but while several people have been scared at first sight, this is magical creatures class, and most magical creatures definitely do deserve your respect or they might kill you. Everyone with half an open mind at least does respect the creatures Hagrid has brought in by the end even if they still don’t like said creatures, so ‘terrify' is a rather presumptuous claim — and it also assigns intent, which is always very hard to prove.”

“And 'Hagrid has maimed several pupils during a series of lessons that many admit to being "very frightening” ‘ is just a bold-faced lie,” added Harry, reading the next sentence. “Hagrid hasn’t harmed a single hair on a single student's head, as long as he’s been alive as far as I’m aware, and certainly not in any of our classes. Yes, there was Buckbeak who scratched Malfoy because the snake insulted the hippogriff, blatantly ignoring what Hagrid told us, but that’s not Hagrid maiming a student. The very least she could have done was say that one of the creatures Hagrid brought to class maimed one student, which would at least be half a truth. And sure, I suppose ‘very frightening’ would be a suitable description for cowards and muggles who’d never met a magical creature before, but like you said, what would there be to study if you didn’t study animals that could maim or kill you? There’s just not much in the magical world that doesn’t threaten your life or safety if you don’t treat it with respect and obey the teacher’s warnings.”

“ 'Don't ever insult one, because it might be the last thing you do' were Hagrid’s exact words when he was telling us about hippogriffs,” added Hermione. “No teacher can be held responsible for a student flagrantly disregarding their instructions. If you use the transfiguration spell to turn a beetle into a button on your head, at the very least bad things are going to happen and depending on how successful you are, you could very well kill yourself — it’s not Professor McGonagall’s fault if you do that, nor would she be considered responsible. It’s the exact same thing with Hagrid, Draco, and Buckbeak. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

“And what is this nonsense about Crabbe getting 'a bad bite off a flobberworm’?” she continued, reading the next line of the article. “Flobberworms have no teeth, and anyone who ever took Care of Magical Creatures or honestly knows anything about magical creatures at all will know that, if they just use their brains for two seconds — which admittedly does seem to be asking a lot of witches and wizards most of the time.

“And I suppose 'We all hate Hagrid’ is true if Draco was talking about the Slytherins, as I’m sure they do all hate Hagrid since that’s what their lord and savior Snape has told them to do — but 'we're just too scared to say anything’? Seems to me like telling the most prolific reporter in the most widely read newspaper in all of wizarding Britain, using your real name and not the cover of anonymity, is _literally_ the exact opposite of ’too scared to say anything’. And seriously Draco, do you expect anyone who knows you to believe you haven’t bitched to Snape about Hagrid every chance you've had, especially when you semi had a case after being scratched by a creature he brought in to class? But I guess he only needs to convince an ignorant public that won’t spend any amount of time verifying what their holy and can do no wrong Daily Prophet tells them to believe, and isn’t concerned with convincing any of his fellow students who actually know his lying, manipulative arse.”

“The next bit about breeding those screwt things is interesting, though,” said Harry. “If breeding really is controlled, and they really were bred by him from manti-cores and fire-crabs, he really could be violating wizarding law. I mean, no more than raising a dragon in his hut, but definitely still illegal.”

“And if he really did tell her 'I was just having some fun’, it sounds like he _did_ breed them himself,” continued Hermione. “But at that point, doesn’t some of this have to fall back on Dumbledore as well? I mean, you can’t seriously expect me to believe that Dumbledore doesn’t know what Hagrid is teaching in his lessons, and know that he has what seems to us to be an illegal creature not only in his possession, but in his classes as well. Which means that Dumbledore either approves or at the very least doesn’t disapprove, which makes him complicit. And also of course means he’ll protect Hagrid from the Ministry if it ever comes down to it, just as he’s been doing since Hagrid was illegitimately expelled all those years ago.”

They continued reading on, until Harry said, “So he’s half giant — who cares? And maybe most giants were bad and supported Voldemort — so did most Slytherins. Yet no one is 'warning about the dangers of associating’ with _them_. Or, I guess they kind of are, Slytherin does have the worst reputation, but it’s not how Rita makes it sound with giants in this article.”

“This one I actually can answer,” replied Hermione sadly. “The wizarding world is as bigoted against giants and anything possibly giant-related as they are against werewolves like Lupin. If you don’t believe me, go tell Ron ’So what?’ when he finds out Hagrid is half giant. Now, I can’t know for sure, and maybe I’m being overly pessimistic here and he and his family doesn’t deserve my doubts, but I would be willing to bet it’s more likely that he was taught by his family to hate giants, than it is that he was taught to judge them and their descendants individually based on their actions. But even if the Weasleys really are as free from prejudice as they like to pretend they are — blood status issues not included, which they are actually above average on — you can go say ’So what? Who cares?’ to most wizards who grew up in the wizarding world, and they’ll stare at you like you’re out of your magical mind.

"But point being, it’s no surprise Hagrid as hidden that all his life. _I_ obviously knew soon after I saw him for the first time — it’s obvious if you open your eyes and actually know anything about giants and charms and potions and anything else that could potentially make someone that big — but I _had_ honestly thought that most students and adults who were raised in the wizarding world were smart enough to figure that out on their own. But from the sounds of this article and how much of an impact Rita thinks it’s going to make, I clearly yet again overestimated my fellow witches and wizards’ intelligence and common sense.”

“You have the most subtle, nice sounding, inoffensive insults I think I’ve ever heard,” chuckled Harry wryly. “I’m not sure whether to be proud or concerned.”

“It’s not my fault none of them engage their brains or have any common sense,” grumbled Hermione. “It’s not that I don’t think many of them are highly intelligent, it’s just that they don’t know how to apply it. The trouble with our wizarding friends is not that they're ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so."

Returning to the article at hand, she said, "Hagrid 'appears to have inherited her brutal nature’ is definitely skirting the line between personal opinion and libel. I'm pretty sure the only people who claim that Hagrid has a giant's brutal nature are people like the Slytherins, who are lying their arses off."

“She did get it right that 'Harry Potter is unaware of the truth about his large friend’, though,” said Harry. “I wouldn’t consider it an unpleasant truth like she said, more a completely indifferent one like the fact the twins are purebloods, you’re a muggleborn, and I’m a halfblood, but I definitely didn’t know that he was a half-giant before this.”

“Yeah, well, even a broken clock is right once or twice a day depending on if it's a twelve or twenty-four hour clock,” replied Hermione with a roll of her eyes. “Don’t give her more credit than she deserves for happening to get one thing right. It could have been completely possible that you knew all along, and that would have been just as much a completely made up lie as the rest of this garbage. Would have been if I’d ever mentioned it to you, I just knew Ron’s head would probably literally explode if I told you when we first became friends, and then it’s just been so long since then that I never thought to tell you after we departed ways with the redhead."

“Good point, good point,” said Harry. “And I wasn’t giving her credit as a ‘journalist’, I was just pointing out one thing she said did happen to line up with reality."

Looking back down at the article, Hermione reread the last few paragraphs to see if there was anything important she missed, after a few seconds pointing at the final line.

“Speaking of journalist — ‘But Albus Dumbledore surely has a duty to ensure that Harry Potter, along with his fellow students, is warned about the dangers of associating with part-giants’ — Don’t _you_ have a duty to tell the truth, and not make up bold-faced lies with just enough semblance of truth in them to make your lie stronger?” she sneered rhetorically. “It’s like the hypocrisy’s just wizzed right over her head.”

“My question is,” said Harry as Hermione pulled the paper back in front of her to quickly read through the rest of it to see if there was anything else important, “did Hagrid just tell her he was a half-giant during their interview? Because he’s hidden it from everyone for however long he’s been alive, so it seems odd that he would have told her. I mean, I know he can be extremely loose-lipped and has let way more slip to us than he ever should have, but that’s one thing he never has in all the years we’ve known and talked to him.”

“And she said 'the Daily Prophet has now unearthed evidence’ that he’s half-giant,” replied Hermione thoughtfully as she set the paper down for a second to look at Harry. “That doesn’t sound like Hagrid told her himself, though she does have a way with mincing words, so you can never be sure. But if he didn’t, how _did_ she find out? And when? And why was it never unearthed in all the years Hagrid has been gamekeeper? Especially last year with Buckbeak, as that would have made the Malfoys’ case even stronger against him. You’re right — none of that makes sense. It’s like something new happened recently to bring this to light, but this time, I have no clue what it could be."

But as neither of them had any ideas when or where or how she could have found out this information about Hagrid, Hermione went back to reading the rest of the paper and Harry back to eating, ready to get started on their first day back at school.


	13. Chapter 13

For a while, Harry and Hermione’s day seemed like it was going to go pleasantly enough after the initial irritation of Rita’s article.

The Hufflepuffs in their Herbology class had finally stopped being so cold towards Harry after the first task, so that Herbology had once again become an enjoyable subject for Harry and Hermione. But as they trudged through the snow up to Hagrid’s hut immediately afterwards, their day quickly turned south yet again.

For as soon as they arrived, struggling their way up, they were yelled at for being five minutes late by some old witch standing out in front of the door to Hagrid’s hut, after having had to wade their way through waist-deep snow to get there from the greenhouses. And all this despite the fact there wasn’t a Slytherin in sight yet, immediately making Hermione wonder if the witch was a Slytherin herself, or merely as cowardly as the rest of the teachers at the school when it came to doing anything that could be perceived as being negative towards the nest of snakes.

But Hermione's musings were cut short by Harry politely asking the witch, “Where is Hagrid?”, to which the witch snapped back at him, "My name is Professor Grubbly-Plank. I am your temporary Care of Magical Creatures teacher.”

Not liking the attitude of this ‘professor’ one bit, Hermione said slightly less politely and a lot more sassily, “That doesn’t even come _close_ to answering Harry's question — _ma’am_.”

Apparently deciding it was easier to almost but not quite answer the pestering girl, Grubby replied shortly, "He is indisposed.”

But before Hermione could point out that the woman had yet again failed to answer the question posed to her, there came sneering laughter from behind them that announced the presence of Slytherins. And once again, to her little surprise, Hermione noticed the clear favoritism towards the Slytherins from Grubby as the woman said nary a peep to any of them about being nearly ten minutes late by that point, and arriving after all of the Gryffindors had arrived.

Instead, she merely said, "This way, please,” striding off around the paddock Hagrid was keeping the Beauxbatons horses in.

Harry and Hermione slowly followed the rest of the class to where Grubby led them, a tree at the edge of the Forbidden Forest that had a unicorn tethered to it. But just as Harry stepped forwards to get a better look at the majestic creature, Grubby slammed her arm hard into his chest, nearly clotheslining him, and potentially breaking his neck had her arm been just a few inches higher than it was.

"Boys keep back!” she barked. "They prefer _our_ touch, unicorns. Girls, come on.”

So all of the girls except Hermione moved forwards towards the unicorn, but Hermione stayed back in solidarity with Harry and the rest of the boys who were being excluded from the lesson. And to discuss Hagrid.

As soon as Grubby was out of earshot, Harry leaned over and asked her quietly, “You don’t think Hagrid’s missing because people found out he’s half-giant, do you? You _did_ say the entire wizarding world is bigoted against giants and anything connected to them. Is he afraid people will actually hate him because of his heritage as much as Rita says they should?"

“I don’t know,” replied Hermione, shaking her head. “He _did_ completely lose his nerve after the Buckbeak incident last year, so it’s not exactly like he has a track record of standing strong in the face of opposition, at least as a teacher, and against other wizards — intimidating your muggle relatives doesn’t exactly count as sticking to his beliefs when he’s a wizard and they’re just muggles who can’t do anything to stop him, magical or size-wise.

“Plus, it’s unlikely he’s just sick or injured, or surely she would have just said so — she can’t hate Gryffindor _that_ much to refuse to give a simple answer because we’re Gryffindor. Even Snape was more than happy to tell everyone that Lupin was ill last year when he filled in during the full moon.”

“But that would mean he had to quit this morning, the day the article came out. Because he couldn’t have quit because of people finding out he’s half-giant _before_ today, as no one knew before that article was published. So he didn’t even give it a couple days to see if anyone cared,” countered Harry.

“Which I’ll admit is odd, but remember — completely lost his confidence after Buckbeak. Maybe he just lost his confidence _before_ anything actually happened this time,” replied Hermione.

"Or maybe he was badly injured by a skrewt, and they really are illegal, so Hagrid couldn’t tell anyone _why_ he couldn’t teach, just that he couldn’t,” proposed Harry thoughtfully. “He didn’t want to get in trouble.”

“It _is_ possible…” said Hermione slowly, but she looked doubtful.

But before she could say anything else, or propose any other theories as to Hagrid’s mysterious disappearance, there came a drawling voice from behind them. "Oh, he hasn't been attacked, Potter and mudblood girlfriend, if that's what you're thinking. No, he's just too ashamed to show his big, ugly face."

Harry turned and gave their favorite snake a raised eyebrow, silently telling him to get on with it already and tell them what he meant, or buck off. Malfoy complied, reaching into his robes and pulling out that morning’s Daily Prophet.

"There you go. Hate to break it to you, Potter…” he sneered in a tone indicating the exact opposite. But Harry didn’t even bother reaching out to take the newspaper from the Slytherin, able to see from where he was standing the image of Hagrid he’d already seen that morning.

“Yeah, he’s half giant — so what?” he said instead. “That’s not an answer to the question of why he’s not here teaching.”

“And before you say it, we’re well aware of the bigotry of your kind against giants,” added Hermione haughtily. “It’s times like this I’m really proud of being a mudblood, and having a half-mudblood boyfriend — we aren't limited by your narrow-minded prejudice against giants, same as we aren't constrained by not being able to say the name Voldemort. All that nonsense really does is restrict you, and pull you down and hurt you more than any good things you could possibly get out of being so intolerant."

Malfoy stared at them for several long seconds, clearly not having expected that response. But he finally collected himself and sneered with much less enthusiasm than normal, "Well, I think this should put an end to the oaf's teaching career. Half-giant — and there was me thinking he'd just swallowed a bottle of Skele-Gro when he was young. None of the mummies and daddies are going to like this at all. They'll be worried he'll eat their kids."

“Skele-Gro? Seriously?” scoffed Hermione. “Then you’re all even stupider than I thought. If you knew _anything_ about Skele-Gro, or engorgement charms, or anything else that could potentially cause a human to become extremely large like Hagrid is, you’d know Hagrid isn’t big because of any of those. Leaving the only remaining possibility that he is part-giant. I knew it instantly the first time I saw him first year.”

Once again, this knocked the wind out of Draco's sails, same as their kiss in the Great Hall on Boxing Day morning had, and same as their already knowing that Hagrid was half-giant and their indifference to it.

But fortunately for him he was saved from having to scramble to come up with a suitable retort, as Grubby shouted over at them, “Are you paying attention over there?”

From over where the girls were all huddled around the unicorn, the witch had been enumerating in a loud voice about the unicorn, as if she were so delusional that she actually thought any of the boys (and Hermione) were actually listening to a word she was saying after being told to stay away. But Hermione was pretty sure she was the only one aware that the witch was even talking loudly enough for the boys to theoretically hear her, as Harry and Draco certainly didn't seem to be noticing it, and none of the rest of the boys seemed to notice either as most of them were chatting with each other, or otherwise doing their own thing that certainly didn’t involve listening to Grubby.

So Hermione immediately shouted back to Grubby, “No! We’re not!”

Which just as Hermione expected, was completely ignored to the point that it seemed like Grubby never even heard her.

So Hermione turned back to Draco and said, “You had some scathing reply you were going to retort to me after I called you a complete idiot, I think?”

But Draco still hadn’t come up with an appropriate riposte, and so after a several second staredown between him and Hermione that Harry watched amusedly from the sideline with a smirk, knowing his girlfriend would win hands down, Draco finally broke and stalked back off to his cronies and hanger-ons, letting Harry and Hermione turn towards Grubby and listen to what she was saying about her precious unicorn she was still only letting females near.

When class eventually let out, and they were all walking back up to the Great Hall for lunch, Harry and Hermione overheard Parvati tell Lavender, "I hope she stays, that woman! That's more what I thought Care of Magical Creatures would be like...proper creatures like unicorns, not monsters….”

“You do realize a unicorn could gore you and three people behind you straight through the heart before you even knew what happened, right?” retorted Hermione as she and Harry passed by. “Or did Grubby fail to mention that small fact? Or perhaps the fact that wizards used them for centuries as war-horses precisely because of how deadly they are with their combined hooves and horn, and intelligence to know how to use them most effectively? Or did she just mention things like they have really pretty coats that change colors as they age, something anyone who’s ever opened a magizoology book would already know?”

Parvati stared at Hermione in shock, clearly taken aback by the normally teachers’ pet’s less than glowing comment about a teacher.

Once he and Hermione had made it out of earshot of their fellow fourth year Gryffindors, Harry leaned over and whispered into her ear, “But I thought you actually thought she was a pretty good teacher. You seemed to be listening pretty attentively to her, anyway."

“I do think she’s a good teacher, but that’s only because she actually knew how to teach, having a clear objective to pass on and a clear — as anyone here, at least — way of telling it to us,” replied Hermione. “Like I said this morning, I do think Hagrid is honestly quite bad at teaching. But that doesn’t mean I can’t defend Hagrid where he deserves defending, and point out the blatant flaws in Grubby’s lesson where they deserve to be pointed out. I don’t dislike Hagrid as a person, in fact I think he’s a great guy and an overall good influence on you when you’ve had so few positive adult role models. I just think he needs some actual training in teaching before he’s given a teaching post, and a whole lot more self-confidence if all it takes is one article to send him running away.”

“So do you want him to come back as teacher, or would you rather have Grubby continue teaching?” asked Harry curiously.

“Hagrid, actually,” answered Hermione. “I certainly want him to stop hiding, and while I do think Grubby is a better teacher than Hagrid at this moment, I don’t like her attitude, or kowtowing to the Slytherins. The last thing we need is another Snape at this school, and she has yet to prove to me that she won’t be, at least in terms of clear favoritism — she doesn’t strike me as abusive like Snape, though she caught you pretty hard in the chest. Wouldn’t be surprised if you have a bruise there in the morning.”

“Then think we should go down to his hut tonight and see if we can’t talk some sense into our giant friend?”

“Sounds like a plan to me,” replied Hermione with a smile.

~HP~

So that evening after supper, Harry and Hermione walked back down to Hagrid’s hut to try to make their half-giant friend see reason and stop hiding.

When they arrived and knocked on the door, they immediately heard Fang’s booming barks, but no heavy footsteps of Hagrid coming to the door to let them in ever came. So after several minutes, Hermione knocked again, even harder. When they still received no answer, she and Harry walked around the entire outside of Hagrid’s hut, just to make sure he wasn’t outside on the other side and somehow hadn’t heard either them or Fang’s deafening barks, and to try to look in the windows to see if they could see him, but all to no avail. Making it back around to the front door, Hermione knocked a third time.

“Hagrid, we read the article — we know you’re half-giant!” she yelled as she knocked. “And we don’t care! We’ve known you for three and half years now — do you really think finding something mildly unpleasant out about your relatives would make us think any different of _you_? And just so you know, I’ve known since first year that you had to be part giant!”

“Yeah!” shouted Harry after her. “We missed you teaching class today, and missed seeing you in the Great Hall!”

After still no reply, Harry tried yelling again, “Come on, Hagrid! It’s _us_! You know we don’t care about the fact your mother was giant!”

But _Hagrid_ apparently did care, as despite their relative assurity that he was in fact in the hut and not off in the forest or something (as he always took Fang with him on those trips), the front door never opened to present them with their large friend. So eventually, growing cold and disheartened in the freezing temperatures, Harry and Hermione trudged back up to the castle, cursing the wizarding world for creating such an atmosphere of fear that no one was willing to say the nickname of a tyrant (having of course forgotten entirely his real name) and a clearly kind, peaceful half-giant felt the need to run away and hide.

As they sat down together on the couch in front of the fireplace once they’d made it back up to the Gryffindor common room, Harry asked, “So what do we do now? We can’t just let him hide away in there like that. And also, is it just me or is it weird that he carried on like normal after Buckbeak scratched Draco — besides his teaching losing all confidence — but he’s running away _now_? Seems to me like a kid in your class getting injured would be as much a reason to run away as this.”

“I guess maybe he thought only students would hear about the Buckbeak incident, but this was in the Daily Prophet so the whole world knows?” guessed Hermione. “I don’t know — who knows what he’s thinking, especially ignoring _us_ like that. But as for what we now do —“

Here she paused, clearly thinking, before finally saying, “Honestly, I’m not sure. If we see him again, we obviously go talk to him and try to convince him to come back like we were planning to tonight. But if tonight is any indication, I’m afraid we may not be seeing him anytime soon. In which case, I don’t know how we proceed. We can try sending him a letter, not that he’d necessarily open it based on what we’ve seen so far, but I’d suggest waiting a few days and seeing if we can’t talk to him in person before we try that. I’d much rather talk to him than try to convince him to come back by letter.”

Unfortunately, as the week progressed, he never reappeared. Not that someone wasn’t taking advantage of his absence, though.

As soon as he saw Harry Tuesday morning in the Great Hall, where Hagrid noticeably still wasn’t at the staff table eating breakfast, Malfoy gloated to Harry, "Missing your half-breed pal? Missing the elephant-man?”

But when Harry simply replied calmly, “Yes, I am — I like Hagrid. He’s a great friend, even if he does leave a lot to be desired as a teacher,” Draco was left just kind of staring at Harry yet again, not knowing what to do when he didn’t get the rise he expected from insulting Hagrid and gloating about his absence. But ever the optimist (or definition of insanity), he continued trying every time he saw Harry for the next two weeks, despite Harry simply ignoring him and walking on past without even acknowledging his presence every time after the first.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since there was some discussion about this in the comments after last chapter — Hermione calling Professor Grubbly-Plank just ‘Grubby' was intentional. Same as Hermione (and Harry) only ever calling Severus Snape by ‘Snape’, and never ‘Professor Snape’, as she doesn’t believe he deserves to be called ‘professor’ due to his abuse of at least Harry, Neville, and Gryffindor in general, but also presumably Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff.

In the middle of January, the first Hogsmeade weekend of the new year arrived.

“Our first real date!” Hermione squealed excitedly as she and Harry met up in the common room that morning.

“So what do you want to do?” asked Harry as they climbed through the portrait hole together to head down to the Great Hall for breakfast. “All we’ve ever done in the past is visit all the shops and get butterbeer and occasionally go by the Shrieking Shack. Not exactly normal ‘date’ stuff, at least from what I’ve heard about dates — the Dursleys never having actually told me anything about dating or dates, of course."

“That’s all I want to do today, too,” answered Hermione with smile. “You don’t need to think you need to do anything special just because we’re calling it a date. I just want to spend the day wandering around outside the castle with you, and maybe snogging when the opportunity arises — that’s definitely something we’ve never done on a Hogsmeade visit before."

“That is very true,” laughed Harry, before turning serious again. "But I just don’t want you to be disappointed by our first date, that’s all."

“I could never be disappointed spending the day with you,” replied Hermione sincerely. “It’s not what we do or where we visit that makes something a date — it’s that we’re spending it together, spending time specifically with each other.

"Anyway, the only ‘date’ place in Hogsmeade is Puddifoot’s tea shop. Which while I like tea as much as any self-respecting British girl, from all the gossip I’ve ever heard about that place, it is _the_ most girly place on the planet, which not only do I have my doubts _you_ would enjoy, it’s never sounded like a place _I_ would want to go to, either. But you are more than welcome to buy me lunch at the Three Broomsticks if that would make you feel better, and make it feel more like a proper date to you.”

“I’d be more than happy to buy you lunch, and anything else you want in Hogsmeade,” replied Harry. “But it’s not about that, it’s just that I want to make sure you have a good date, as well as a good day in general, and even more so with it being our first date and not just spending time together in the library and sneaking in snogs throughout the castle when we have the chance.”

“I’ll have a plenty good date just because _you’re_ there, don’t worry,” smiled Hermione, bumping her shoulder against Harry’s playfully.

By this point they’d reached the Great Hall, and found a spot to sit down to eat, so they’d be ready to leave for Hogsmeade when the front doors opened at ten.

At ten o’clock precisely, Harry and Hermione found themselves near the front of the crowd gathered in the entrance hall when Professor McGonagall opened the front doors. With a scowl, Filch checked their names off the list, and let them exit into the cold, wet grounds of Hogwarts. Following the road out through the Hogwarts gates and towards Hogsmeade, they discussed where they wanted to go first.

“All the shops will immediately be crowded with everyone, especially as cold and wet as it is,” said Hermione. “So we should probably go visit Lupin’s old haunt first, and let the crowds all settle down so everything isn’t so crowded.”

So when they got to the high street, they continued straight on through, past all the shops and the Three Broomsticks, and out the road to the hill that led up towards the Shrieking Shack. Once at the top of the hill, they climbed over the fence and walked the remaining distance to the building itself, knowing there was nothing actually scary about the most haunted dwelling in all of Britain. But after trying all the doors and windows with every spell they could think of short of blasting them down with the blasting charm _Confringo_ , they finally gave up and admitted defeat, acknowledging that Dumbledore had made the house completely impenetrable from the outside.

But as they were walking around the back of the house again, Hermione backed Harry towards the wall with a predatory smirk. “There _is_ one good thing about coming all the way out here, though….”

“Which is…?” asked Harry, slightly wary of the glint in her eyes.

“No prying eyes to watch us snog."

Harry needed told no more. He crashed his lips down on hers and pulled her flush against him, as she pushed him up against the rough wooden siding of the house.

They snogged for a long time, but eventually even the heat from kissing and each other couldn’t keep them warm from the cold any longer, and they headed back into town. Seeing that the Three Broomsticks was crammed full with everyone there for lunchtime, the two of them decided to visit all the shops first, before going there for their own late lunch afterwards. They went though Zonko's Joke Shop, Dervish and Banges, and finally into Honeydukes sweetshop, their favorite shop in the quaint little town.

“Maybe _we_ should open up a sweetshop when we get out of Hogwarts,” commented Harry as they perused the aisles of sugar. “Though, your parents might not be too thrilled about that.”

“Probably not,” laughed Hermione. “They already don’t like how much of a sweet tooth I do have, and it’s still significantly less than yours or the Redhead-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named’s.”

“Doesn’t it have to be a little annoying having dentists as parents?” asked Harry with a chuckle as he picked out an extra-large box of chocolate frogs so he’d have plenty to share with her.

“Oh, it definitely was as a kid,” answered Hermione with another laugh as she looked over the selection of sugar quills. “Still can be over the summers, but they’ve generally acknowledged that I like sugar more than I should, so as long as I brush my teeth plenty properly, they don’t say anything. Plus, I don’t have access to the Great Hall or Hogsmeade there, so I don’t eat as many sweets over the summer as I do here.”

Finding everything they could carry in Honeydukes, Harry and Hermione paid for their purchases and headed back out onto the main street. Looking over at Hermione, Harry asked, “Think the Three Broomsticks has quieted down enough for us to eat? Because if not, I’m going to have to break out some of these sweets I bought — I’m starving.”

“Me too,” answered Hermione. “And it should be, or at least enough that we can get a booth.”

So they walked down the street to the Three Broomsticks, which they pleasantly found only about half full, the crowds finally having dissipated as everyone had drunk their fill of butterbeer and headed back out for more shopping or back to Hogwarts. Harry and Hermione quickly found a table, and sat down. Once Madam Rosmerta had come over and took their order, they started looking around to see who else was in the tavern with them to pass the time. To their surprise, they saw Ludo Bagman off in a corner talking with a multitude of goblins.

“Odd _he’s_ here,” commented Harry quietly. “It not being a TriWizard weekend.”

“I’m more interested in why he’s talking with a bunch of goblins who seem rather angry with him,” replied Hermione. “It’s completely reasonable, if maybe slightly unusual, for him to be visiting the only entirely magical town in all of Britain on the weekend, but there _is_ something off about that scene over there.”

They continued to watch surreptitiously for quite a while, beginning to eat as well when Madam Rosmerta brought them their lunch, until Bagman looked up himself and spotted Harry. Quickly excusing himself from the goblins, he hurried over to where Harry and Hermione were eating.

“Harry! How are you? Been hoping to run into you! Everything going all right?” he said with his boyish grin as soon as he walked up.

“I’m doing fine, thank you,” replied Harry, wondering why the tournament judge had been hoping to run into him. Everything he’d needed to be told about the tournament so far had either been told to everyone together, or else it had been his Head of House, Professor McGonagall to tell him about the Yule Ball, not one of the judges.

“Wonderful, wonderful!” replied Bagman a little too cheerfully and eagerly. "I was wondering if I could have a quick, private word with you, Harry?” Turning to Hermione, he added, "You couldn't give us a moment, could you?”

“My girlfriend can hear anything you have to say to me — I’ll just tell her as soon as you leave, anyway,” said Harry firmly before Hermione had a chance to say anything, as he reached across the table and took her hand in his.

Hermione just looked up at Bagman and shrugged. “Looks like Harry wants me to stay.”

Bagman seemed to hesitate for a moment, before coming to the conclusion that he wasn’t about to get rid of the girl, and that it wasn’t really that important anyway to only tell Harry. So he turned and grabbed an empty seat from the nearest table, and sat down at the end of their booth.

"Well, I just thought I'd congratulate you again on your splendid performance against that Horntail, Harry. Really superb."

“Thanks..." said Harry slowly, knowing that couldn't be the real reason Bagman wanted to talk to him, or he wouldn't have tried to do it alone.

But Bagman seemed to have no interest in actually getting to the point of his visit, instead glancing back over at the goblins he’d been talking with before spotting Harry, who were still watching him intensely with dark, slanted eyes.

“Absolute nightmare,” grumbled Bagman in an undertone when he saw Harry and Hermione glance over at the goblins as well. “Their English is terrible — almost like being back with all the Bulgarians at the Quidditch World Cup, except they at least used sign language a human could recognize. This lot keep gabbling in Gobbledegook, and I only know one word of Gobbledegook — bladvak. It means ‘pickax’, so I don't like to use it in case they think I'm threatening them.”

He gave a short, booming laugh that didn’t match up with anything he had just said, making Hermione think he was much more nervous about his meeting with the goblins than he was trying to let on.

So already thinking that his meeting with the goblins was odd, Hermione pressed, asking conversationally, “What is it they want?"

“Er...well…they…er...they're looking for Barty Crouch,” mumbled Bagman shiftily, making Hermione question how much that was really the truth.

But before she could press any further, Harry said, “Why are they looking for him here? He's at the Ministry in London, isn't he? At least during the week — maybe not on the weekend.”

“Also, wouldn’t they normally be dealing with the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, instead of Mr Crouch?” added Hermione.

"Er...as a matter of fact, I've no idea where he is," replied Bagman, completely ignoring Hermione’s question. "He's sort of...stopped coming to work. Been absent for a couple of weeks now. Young Percy, his assistant, says he's ill. Apparently he's just been sending instructions in by owl. But would you mind not mentioning that to anyone? Because Rita Skeeter's still poking around everywhere she can, and I'm willing to bet she'd work up Barty’s illness into something sinister. Probably say he's gone missing like Bertha Jorkins.”

“Speaking of Ms Jorkins — have you found her yet?” asked Hermione directly, refusing to be ignored on this question — after all, a woman’s life was potentially at stake.

Once again, Bagman looked highly strained. “Well…no, not yet. I've got people looking, of course, but really it's all very strange. She definitely arrived in Albania, because she met her second cousin there. And then she left the cousin's house to go south and see an aunt...and she seems to have vanished without trace en route. Blowed if I can see where she's got to...she doesn't seem the type to elope, for instance...but still…."

Suddenly he seemed to remember that he had a reason he had come over to speak with Harry besides avoiding the goblins, and quickly said, "What are we doing, talking about goblins and Bertha Jorkins? I really wanted to ask you” — here he lowered his voice, not that they’d been talking particularly loudly before, or that anyone was paying them any attention, and they _had_ just been talking about a missing Ministry worker that he hadn’t wanted them to say anything about to anyone, but he lowered his voice even more anyway — “How are you getting on with your golden egg?”

“Figured out the clue just fine,” answered Harry honestly. “Mostly due to Hermione here’s genius, but still — we have it all figured out.”

“Oh. Uh, well, that’s good,” stuttered Bagman, clearly taken aback that Harry had already figured it all out all on his own. After a long pause in which he didn’t seem to know what to say, having obviously expected Harry not to have a clue about his egg, he finally said still very quietly, "Listen, Harry — I feel very bad about all this...you were thrown into this tournament, you didn't volunteer for it...and if….” Here his voice dropped so quiet that Harry and Hermione had to lean closer to hear him, “If there’s any help at all I can give you...a prod in the right direction on actually completing the task now that you’ve figured out what it is…. It’s just that I’ve really taken a liking to you — the way you got past that dragon! Well, just say the word and I’ll give you a hint.”

Harry’s eyebrows rose slightly as he listened to Bagman’s offer to cheat. Carefully wording his reply so as not to stir up any trouble in case he was misunderstanding Bagman’s offer, and because he knew he was already violating the rule with all of Hermione’s help in both tasks, he said as casually as he could, “Aren’t we supposed to work out how to complete the tasks by ourselves?”

"Well...well, yes," answered Bagman in an impatient tone, like Harry wasn’t seeing the gift he was trying to hand him. “But come on, Harry — we all want a Hogwarts victory, don't we?"

“So have you offered Cedric the same help you’re offering me?” countered Harry, wondering for a brief second if he actually had and that’s how Cedric had known to open it underwater in order to then tell Harry. “He is after all the real Hogwarts champion, not me.”

A tiny frown briefly flickered across Bagman’s face, before he smoothed it out and said, “Well, no, I haven’t. But — well, like I say, I've taken a liking to you. Just thought I'd offer….”

“Well, like I said, Hermione and I have already figured out what the clue is,” said Harry firmly, all hope that Bagman wasn’t actively trying to cheat, or that he’d been the one to tell Cedric in the first place, gone.

Bagman looked almost affronted at Harry’s blunt refusal to accept a leg up in trying to win the tournament, but fortunately Fred and George turned up at that point to save Harry and Hermione’s date.

"Hello, Mr. Bagman,” Fred said brightly as he lay a friendly hand on the judge’s shoulder. "Can we buy you a drink?"

"Er…no, no thank you, boys…" avoided Bagman as he quickly stood up, for some reason giving Harry a disappointed look for refusing to accept his help as he did so, as if Harry had let him down badly. Then he hurriedly said, "Well, I must dash. Nice seeing you all. Good luck, Harry,” before scampering out of the pub, the goblins he’d been talking to when they’d first entered quickly following after him, obviously not so done with their conversation as Bagman had been.

Fred and George watched Bagman leave looking as disappointed as the judge himself at being so quickly brushed off, before turning back to Harry and Hermione and saying cheerfully, “Well, we won’t bother you, but have a good date.”

Once they were alone again, Harry asked, “Why do you think Bagman's trying to persuade me to cheat?”

“Well...technically he’s actually not, right?” answered Hermione. "From what you told me the day after your name came out, the only rule they told you guys was that you couldn’t ask for or accept help of any kind from your teachers — not other students or judges. But I get what you mean, I really do — it's definitely weird. And probably not what any of the headmasters or Mr Crouch wanted, they just like normal never thought to actually say you can’t accept help from judges who oddly offer you help. And obviously students will always go to each other since there’s no way of getting caught as long as you’re even halfway smart about it, so it’s stupid to even bother trying to make that a rule. So I guess really, accepting Bagman’s help would just not as blatantly be against the intended, unwritten rules as Mad-Eye doing everything he could besides coming right out and telling you how to get past the dragon was, given that Mad-Eye actually _is_ one of your teachers, and is _expressly_ forbidden from helping you — not that any of it actually matters, as everyone who knows anything about this tournament knows cheating is more common than actually successfully completing all the tasks is, even with all the cheating help that goes on.”

“Oh. Never thought of it like that,” replied Harry thoughtfully. “They _didn’t_ actually tell us we couldn’t accept judges' or other students’ help. I guess I just assumed that, because it made sense.”

“You assumed that because you’re a muggleborn — you actually have common sense, unlike most wizards,” said Hermione. “Remember, they flinch at a nickname because they completely forgot the dude’s real name — though they’d probably flinch at that, too, if they could only remember it. And then of course fearing all werewolves and giant descendants despite having known or gone to school with ones they’d call friends, all while fearing and discriminating against their kind behind their backs.”

“Then I guess being a mudblood, or half a mudblood in my case, really is a good thing,” smiled Harry.

But his smile faded the next moment, as he saw Rita entering the pub with her fat, sycophantic photographer at her heels.


	15. Chapter 15

As Rita walked towards one of the tables near where Harry and Hermione were sitting, they overheard her saying to her photographer, "...didn't seem very keen to talk to us, did he, Bozo? Now, why would that be, do you think? And what's he doing with a pack of goblins in tow anyway? Showing them the sights...what nonsense...he was always a bad liar. Reckon something's up? Think we should do a bit of digging? 'Disgraced Ex-Head of Magical Games and Sports, Ludo Bagman...' Snappy start to a sentence, Bozo — we just need to find a story to fit it."

But just as Harry and Hermione looked at each other in surprise at hearing that Bagman had said he was showing the goblins the sights, when he’d so clearly not been, Rita spotted Harry.

"Harry!" she said, beaming, causing several nearby people to look around at them. "How lovely! Why don't you come and join us?"

“After blatantly turning the gullible, sheeple public against Hagrid? I wouldn't come near you with a ten-foot broomstick," retorted Harry with a sneer.

"Our readers have a right to the truth, Harry. I am merely doing my job —”

Rita tried to excuse her blatant attacks on Hagrid’s character as she raised her perfectly manicured, heavily penciled eyebrows at being challenged by one of the sheep, but Harry and Hermione weren’t having any of it.

“No, you’re intentionally turning the public against him, and at the very least coming close to libel if not fully crossing the line for saying he’s a blood-thirsty monster with a brutal nature when he has nothing but fifty years of peaceful interactions with people,” interrupted Harry.

“Not to mention your blatant lie about him maiming several pupils in class. Hagrid hasn’t touched a hair on a single student's head — the incident in question was the hippogriff he brought to class, and that only occurred because the student flagrantly disobeyed Hagrid’s direct instructions. Then of course there’s your blatant lies about said incident that came from that student which you clearly didn’t check to see if were actually true, and the blatant lie from his friend about being bitten by a flobberworm, which anyone who’s ever opened a magizoology book or taken even a year of Care class knows flobberworms have no teeth, and therefore physically cannot bite anything, let alone give a ‘bad bite’ as you published in your pure propaganda piece,” added Hermione.

“But at least ‘We all hate Hagrid’ _could_ have been true if you hadn’t failed to specify that it's only Slytherins who hold that opinion,” picked up Harry in a sarcastic tone. “Though you kind of lose any credibility you might have gained by immediately after that publishing in the most widely read publication in the country the full name of a student claiming to be ’too scared to say anything’. If he was actually too scared to say anything, and was actually in fear of retribution from Hagrid or anyone else on the Hogwarts staff, wouldn’t he have requested anonymity before he told you everything he did? I mean, that was literally the textbook opposite of ’too scared to say anything’. Oh, but wait, he’s lying hypocrite who actually fears nothing except being outperformed in absolutely everything magical by my genius girlfriend — you know, the girl you spread lies about the two of us being together back right after the wand weighing thing?"

“Oh — and let’s not forget it takes a truly stupid witch or wizard to have met Hagrid and not know from one look that he’s half-giant,” finished Hermione with a truly magnificent contemptuous sneer that could have made her an honorary Slytherin. "Even _I_ , a nothing mudblood, knew from one look at him when I was still only eleven years old that he _obviously_ had to be at least partially descended from a giant — whether half, or quarter, or some other percentage.”

Rita stared at Hermione in shock for several seconds, at both her use of the forbidden word ‘mudblood’ on herself, and the fact the mudblood clearly didn’t know her place and was calling all the real witches and wizards of the world stupid morons. In fact, the entire pub had gone deathly silent at the battle of wits occurring in front of them between a school-aged, self-confessed mudblood and one of the most famous, if not always perhaps most liked, reporters in the Daily Prophet’s arsenal.

But ever one for scavenging a less than ideal situation, the ‘journalist’ quickly snatched her Quick-Quotes Quill out of her dragon-skin handbag and said, “Then how about giving me an interview about the Hagrid _you_ know, Harry and — _you, girl_? The man behind the muscles? Your unlikely friendship and the reasons behind it. Would you call him a father substitute?”

“You’re a horrible woman, you know that?” retorted Hermione, her lip curled up scornfully. “You don’t care who’s life you ruin, so long as you have a story to sell. It’s not about the truth — it’s all about money with you. Sensational lies sell to the gullible, sheeple public, and you never see any repercussions from destroying their lives with your slander. You have no accountability, since the Prophet’s your partner in crime, and you keep things just true and opinion-based enough that even if the Ministry had a court to sue you for libel in, you could get away scotch-free or with just a minor slap on the wrist. You’re a disgrace to the name reporter. So good day, and hope to never see you again as long as I live, though unfortunately I know I won’t be so lucky — stick _that_ in your stupid articles!”

And with that she leapt up and grabbed Harry’s hand, and drug him out of the pub with her.

Everyone stared at them as they swept out with their heads held high, while behind them Rita’s Quick-Quotes Quill was flying a mile a minute over a piece of parchment splayed out on the table Rita and her photographer were sitting at.

~HP~

But as Harry and Hermione swept through the door and back out onto the high street, Ron, who’d happened to come into the pub with Dean and Seamus for another butterbeer soon after Rita had entered, and therefore had heard the entire exchange, joined them uninvited.

"She'll be after you next, Hermione,” he growled as he followed them down the street.

"Let her," sneered Hermione as she picked up the pace in an attempt to try to silently get it through his thick skull that he was about as welcome in their company as Rita herself was.

"You don't want to go upsetting Rita Skeeter,” growled Ron right back. "I'm serious, Hermione. She’ll dig up something on you —“

“And what do _you_ care?” retorted Hermione, cutting him off. “You’ve made it abundantly clear that you have no interest in being friends with Harry and I, so what difference does it make to you what she says about me or drags up about me?”

This she was actually curious about, as Ron seemed far too invested in this for some reason, than just being interested in protecting her feelings from another scathing article she herself couldn’t care less about.

“People still associate me with you!” the redhead snarled back at her. “You’ll go messing up _my_ good reputation by dragging _your_ name though the mud! Don’t you ever think of anyone besides yourself?!”

_So_ that _would be why_ , Hermione thought to herself, as Harry stared openmouthed at the redhead in utter disbelief for accusing Hermione of not thinking of others by not caring what lies Rita spread about her, when the redhead never thought of anyone _but_ himself, most specifically at that very moment as he was only concerned with protecting his own imaginary reputation.

But Hermione, who was far too used to Ron’s hypocrisy to think much of it anymore, merely snarled, “I can damm well drag my name through any mud I like, thank you very much! I am a _mud_ -blood, after all, remember? The mud’s where I apparently belong according to your people. And it isn’t just the likes of the Malfoys who are that way, either — you and your family may not be prejudiced against mudbloods, but I’ll bet you didn’t go 'So what?' when you heard Hagrid is half-giant, _did you_?”

Now it was Ron’s turn to stare gape-mouthed.

“Go ’ _So what?_ ’?!” he exclaimed after several seconds. “He’s _half giant_ , Hermione! They're just vicious, giants. It's in their natures, they're like trolls...they just like killing, everyone knows that!”

“And just like I told you he’d react,” muttered Hermione under her breath to Harry, before turning back to Ron and saying, “Buck off. Go back to your giant-fearing friends, leave Harry and I alone unless you’re coming to apologize for how absolutely horrible you’ve treated both of us over the years since you first walked into Harry’s compartment on the Hogwarts Express, and for God’s sake, grow a spine and stop caring about your bloody ‘reputation’ and social standing so much!”

And with that she turned abruptly away from him and picked up her pace yet again with a determined and unyielding look on her face, causing Harry to practically have to run after her to keep up, and leaving Ron standing in the middle of the street staring at her disappearing back in disbelief.

“Where are we going, anyway?” asked Harry a few minutes later once he was sure they were alone for good again.

For Hermione clearly had a destination in mind, one back towards the castle. But he didn’t know what it could be, as there seemed to him no reason to actually go back to the castle yet, when they could easily stay in Hogsmeade for the rest of the afternoon successfully avoiding both Rita and Ron if she wanted to.

"Hagrid isn't hiding anymore!” she growled angrily, but not at him. "He should never have let that sorry excuse for a human being upset him! Come on — we’re going to drag him back out into the world by force if necessary!”

Striding up to the door of Hagrid’s cabin several minutes later, Hermione pounded on it as hard as she could, shouting, “Hagrid, that's enough! We know you're in there! Nobody cares if your mum was a giantess! You can't let that foul Skeeter woman do this to you, Harry and I won’t let you! So get over here and open this door this very minute, Hagrid, or I’ll blast it down and we’ll come in there ourselves! I know plenty of spells!"

The door abruptly flew open, and Hermione huffed, “About damn ti—!” until she noticed it wasn’t Hagrid standing there, and stopped short.

"Good afternoon," said the visitor pleasantly as he smiled down at the two of them.

“Afternoon, Professor Dumbledore. We came to make Hagrid stop hiding," replied Hermione resolutely.

"Yes, I surmised as much," answered Dumbledore with a chuckle and a twinkle in his eyes. "Why don't you come in?"

So Hermione and Harry followed him in, where they found Hagrid sitting at his table, looking like a complete mess.

"Hi, Hagrid," said Harry and Hermione together.

“E'Lo,” Hagrid answered hoarsely, looking up at them gloomily.

As Harry, Hermione, and Dumbledore all sat down across from Hagrid, Dumbledore said to the half-giant, "Did you by any chance hear what Miss Granger was shouting, Hagrid? Hermione and Harry certainly still seem to want to know you, judging by the way they were attempting to break down your door and threatening to blast it off its hinges.”

"Of course we still want to know you, Hagrid,” replied Harry earnestly. "You didn’t really think anything that Skeeter cow said could change how we see you, do you? Hagrid, how could you possibly think that we'd care what that despicable excuse for a human being wrote after her article about me and Hermione back when my name came out of the goblet? You aren’t the only person she’s attacked and spread lies about this year, even if she might have been a little more blunt in her attack on you than us.”

“See? Living proof of what I've been telling you, Hagrid," said Dumbledore as a couple of tears leaked out of the corners of Hagrid’s eyes. "I have shown you the letters from the countless parents who remember you from their own days here, telling me in no uncertain terms that if I sacked you, they would have something to say about it —“

"Not all of 'em," interrupted Hagrid hoarsely. "Not all of 'em wan' me ter stay."

"Really, Hagrid —“ admonished Dumbledore. “If you are holding out for universal popularity, you will never do anything — no one ever would. Not a week has passed since I became headmaster of this school that I haven't had at least a dozen owls complaining about the way I run it. But what do I do? Hand over the position to someone else and barricade myself in my study and refuse to talk to anybody?"

"Yeh — yeh're not half-giant!" croaked Hagrid in what Hermione assumed was supposed to be a defensive tone, but more just came across as petulant.

“Hagrid — look at _my_ relatives! Look at the Dursleys, and tell me who or what you’re descended from completely determines who _you_ are!” exclaimed Harry emphatically. "You aren’t who you’re descended from, you’re who _you_ make yourself to be!”

“And if you want to talk about hated and feared descendants, _I’m_ a mudblood — born of muggle parents, the worst possible kind of parentage according to half the wizarding world!” added Hermione.

“Excellent points," said Professor Dumbledore, smiling down at Harry and Hermione. “And take my own brother, Aberforth, for example. He was prosecuted for practicing inappropriate charms on a goat. It was all over the papers, but did Aberforth hide? No, he did not! He held his head high and went about his business as usual! Then again, I don’t think he ever read the paper at that time, so he probably didn’t know what anyone was saying about him, but still…."

"Come back and teach, Hagrid, please," implored Hermione quietly, completely changing tones from the demanding one she’d been using when threatening to destroy his door, to the perfect little bookworm, teachers’ pet, innocent girl she’d perfected over the years, in hopes of appealing to his caring nature — and maybe in the process making him realize that _was_ his nature, not the often vicious nature of giants that he may have been partially descended from. “Please come back, we really miss you. And that Grubby woman is insufferable as a person.”

Hermione very briefly wondered if Dumbledore would reprimand her for saying that, as he doubtlessly was the one who’d appointed her in Hagrid’s temporary stead, but he didn’t — though whether because he thought what she said would help get Hagrid to return to his job or because he didn’t disagree with her, she didn’t know.

It was apparently Hermione’s soft tone that finally won Hagrid over, as he almost imperceptibly nodded his head as more tears left his beetle-black eyes to track their way down his face to his mane of a beard.

His job done for him, Dumbledore stood up, saying firmly, "I refuse to accept your resignation, Hagrid, and I expect you back at work on Monday. You will join me for breakfast at eight-thirty in the Great Hall, no excuses. Good afternoon to you all.”

Once he’d left, Hagrid finally said, "Great man, Dumbledore...great man…"

Harry and Hermione spent a while longer at Hagrid’s, as the half-giant and their friend told them about his father, growing up, and Dumbledore always believing in him and helping him out. And when Hagrid had asked Harry how he was doing with his egg, upon seeing the wide, watery smile the half-giant gave him when Harry told him that they'd figured out the clue inside the the egg, he couldn’t bring himself to burst the half-giant's finally happy bubble by telling him that even though they’d solved the clue, they still had no idea how to actually complete the task that they now knew what was going to be. But eventually they bid Hagrid goodbye, and walked back up to the castle hand in hand for supper.

As they walked across the slushy grounds, Harry squeezed Hermione’s hand and said apologetically, “I’m sorry you never got the date you dreamed of.”

“Nonsense. I protected Hagrid’s reputation from Rita and saved him from himself with the man I love.”


	16. Chapter 16

Starting the very morning after they'd taken their egg to the prefects bathroom for a swim, Harry and Hermione had spent the two months leading up to the second task trying to find some way for Harry to survive underwater for an hour.

But it had all been to no avail. By the time the fourth week of February rolled around, Harry was pretty sure they'd searched through every book in the Hogwarts library, as well as all of Hermione's own personal collection that she’d bought over the years from Flourish and Blotts that weren’t in the library. But even their old faithful that’d never let them down before, _Hogwarts: A History_ , couldn't provide them with an answer this time. And the second task was on Wednesday of that week — things were looking grim for Harry’s chances of being able to recover whatever the mermaids were going to steal from him.

But never two to give up, Sunday evening found them sitting once again in the library, desperately searching for anything useful.

“Oh, this is no use!" Hermione exclaimed suddenly, snapping shut _Weird Wizarding Dilemmas_ and banging her head against the table. "Who on earth wants to make their nose hair grow into ringlets? That’s just stupid. Magic could solve so many problems in this world, both magical and muggle, and _that’s_ what witches and wizards waste their time inventing spells for?” she complained to Harry in disbelief at the absurdity of the world she now belonged to — though she wasn’t always sure she really wanted to admit that to people (Statute of Secrecy aside).

“Does it work on _hair_ hair, too? You know, hair on your head?” asked Harry as he closed his own book that was providing no answers. “Because that at least could have its uses, maybe. Still sounds kind of stupid, though, but maybe not completely purposeless.”

“Considering the fact is specifically says nose hairs, I’m guessing somehow not,” answered Hermione, before letting out a long sigh. “This is hopeless. How has no witch or wizard ever invented a spell for breathing underwater? Other than the fact they’re wasting all their time inventing nose hair ringlet spells."

But before Harry could reply, Neville walked up to where they were sitting and tossed an open book down on the table in front of them.

"I overheard you saying you were looking for a way to breathe underwater," he said. "Its called gillyweed.

"You have to eat _that_ ," pointing at the picture in question, "right before you go into the lake. It’ll let you be able to breathe underwater like you need. And as long as you eat the proper amount, it will last you the hour you said you need to be underwater."

"How did you—?" began Harry.

"I was working on our Herbology homework, and flipping through this Herbology book Professor Moody gave me at the beginning of the semester, and I saw it. I'd heard you two talking in the common room about what Harry has to do in the second task, so I came over to see if you'd found anything yet, and show you this if you hadn't."

"Wow, thanks Neville!" said Harry. "We were completely stumped."

"You don't happen to know where we can _get_ any of this gillyweed, do you…?" asked Hermione hesitantly.

"Sorry," replied Neville with a shake of his head, "I don't. Never seen or heard of it before this book, which is a little odd considering how many Herbology books I've read through over the years. But it is what it is. And I know it's not much help, but I figured I'd tell you anyway."

“No — thank you!" exclaimed Harry. "Now at least we have a possibility, which is a lot more than we had before.”

“Just sorry I couldn’t help you more — and best of luck finding some, or something else that will work. We’re all cheering for you in the second task, Harry,” replied Neville sincerely.

As Neville returned to where he'd been working on his homework before coming over, Harry turned to Hermione and said, “Well, we at least know what we’re looking for now. Maybe the library can finally come through for us.”

“Hopefully — but there’s only one way to find out,” replied Hermione with a smirk.

So Harry and Hermione spent the rest of that evening, and the entire next day (when they weren’t eating or in class), searching high and low for any sign of gillyweed. Together Hermione and Harry scoured the library for any books that might suggest where the water-plant could be found, and Monday night Harry used his invisibility cloak to search the greenhouses. But the elusive plant persisted in its absence.

They had also continued searching for any other magic that could help Harry breathe underwater, but they were no more successful at that than they were at finding the mysterious gillyweed, and were beginning to seriously lose hope of finding any way for Harry to complete the task.

~HP~

But Tuesday morning, Harry was startled awake by someone poking him.

"Ouch — stop that!" he exclaimed, reaching blindly for his glasses.

"Harry Potter must wake up, sir!"

"Stop poking me —"

"Dobby must poke Harry Potter, sir, he must wake up!"

Harry finally found his glasses, and put them on.

"Dobby has come to give Harry Potter what he needs for the second task!" squeaked the elf.

"What?" said Harry. "But you don't know what I need for the second task—"

"Dobby knows, sir! Harry Potter needs gillyweed to go into the lake!"

"How did you—?"

"Dobby heard the Neville boy saying Harry Potter needed gillyweed for the second task. So Dobby has been watching Harry Potter, and he has seen he hasn't been able to get any gillyweed, so Dobby got gillyweed for him, sir!"

He put his hand in the pocket of his shorts and drew out a ball of slimy, grayish-green rat tails.

"And you're positive this really is gillyweed?" asked Harry warily, looking distrustfully at the blob that really did look like the picture in the book.

"Of course, sir, Dobby is one hundred percent positive."

After another moment's hesitation, Harry finally accepted that Dobby really knew what he was talking about, and gingerly took the gillyweed from the house-elf. "Thanks, Dobby. You're a life saver," he said sincerely.

"Anything for Harry Potter, sir. Anything! But Dobby is supposed to be in the kitchens, sir. Dobby will be missed if he doesn't return immediately — good luck, Harry Potter, sir, good luck!"

Harry just got out "See you later, Dobby!" before the house-elf disappeared with a _crack_.

As it was too late to go back to sleep, Harry stuffed the gillyweed in his trunk and headed down to the common room to wait for Hermione to wake up. But when he got down there, he found Hermione already awake, going through three spellbooks at once.

"If that's for the second task, you can quit."

Hermione looked up quickly, startled by the unexpected break in the early morning silence of the common room. "What do you—?"

"Dobby just woke me up and gave me some gillyweed. I don't know where he got it from, but it looks exactly like the book, and he said he's a hundred percent positive it really is gillyweed."

"Not to question your house elf, but he _doesn't_ exactly have the best track record helping you — any chance I could see it to check for myself, and see if it looks like the correct amount?" said Hermione. “I’d feel a lot better about it."

"It's up in my room, and I'd rather not risk waking anyone up going back in there right now," answered Harry. "But we can go look at it at lunch — I'd be more than happy for you to double check Dobby's claims. I know he means well, but he's caused a lot more trouble than he's solved."

So as soon as the bell rang for lunch that day, Harry and Hermione headed the opposite direction of everyone else, and headed up to Harry's dorm instead of the Great Hall. Pulling the ball of rat tails out of his trunk, he plopped it down in Hermione's hand.

After a careful look-over, Hermione finally said, "Looks legit to me, and exactly the right amount. I think for once Dobby got it right.”


	17. Chapter 17

That evening, Harry and Hermione were sitting together on the couch in the common room, discussing what might be stolen from Harry for the next day's task, when the twins walked up.

"McGonagall wants to see you, Hermione," said Fred, plopping down on the armrest next to the genius brunette.

"Why?” asked Hermione in confusion, looking up at him. She couldn’t ever remember a teacher wanting to see her for anything when she wasn’t in trouble with Harry, and they certainly hadn’t done anything wrong recently.

"Dunno…She didn't look too happy, though," answered George, who'd taken the armchair next to Harry.

Looking over apologetically at Harry, Hermione said, "Looks like I've been called away," before leaning over for a long kiss. Breaking apart, she added as she stood up, "I'll hurry back as quickly as I can, but don’t stay up too late if I’m still gone — you have the second task in the morning.”

After watching Hermione disappear out the portrait hole to go find Professor McGonagall, Harry turned to the twins and asked them how their joke shop plans and inventions were going. So for the next several hours, Harry and the twins talked and played with Crookshanks, enchanting random objects they found scattered about the common room to fly or roll around for the kneazle to chase. But by eleven o’clock, Crookshanks was curled up on the rug in front of the fire, and Harry, remembering his girlfriend’s admonishment to get a proper night’s sleep before the second task the following morning, bid the twins goodbye and headed to bed himself — for Hermione still hadn’t returned. But Harry wasn’t particularly worried, as he knew he’d see her in the morning before the task.

But when Harry entered the common room to meet up with her before walking down to breakfast together the following morning, Hermione wasn't there like normal. After waiting ten minutes to see if she was just very late from having had to stay up so late the night before, he finally gave up and walked down to the Great Hall alone, beginning to become worried. When he walked into the Great Hall several minutes later, he didn't see her anywhere in there, either, and panic began building inside him — she had never just disappeared off the face of Hogwarts like this before, and especially not without writing him a note to let him know she was safe and what she was doing.

Harry milled about in the Great Hall for as long as he reasonably could after he'd finished eating, waiting for her to appear out of nowhere and tell him everything was alright. While waiting, he mulled over in his mind what it could possibly be that the merfolk had stolen from him, as he hadn’t noticed anything missing that morning or any time recently. Meanwhile, people began making their way outside towards the lake, having apparently been told at some point that that's where the second task was going to be. Though when or how they had been told, he had no clue, as he certainly had never been told, and if Hermione hadn’t helped him figure out the clue, he would have had no idea where to go that morning. And Hermione had never mentioned to him having been told where to go, either, despite the fact that as a non-competitor, she should have been told with everyone else.

But as long as Harry waited, Hermione never showed up.

So thirty minutes before the task was to start, when he could wait for her no longer, he finally departed the Great Hall in a minor state of worry bordering on sheer panic, and slowly walked down to the lake, wondering where she could possibly be, and what could have possibly happened that she wouldn't be there to wish him good luck — it was completely un-Hermione-like in every possible way.

Arriving at the Champions Tent on the edge of the lake, Harry saw that Cedric, Fleur, and Krum were already there and waiting. As soon as Harry stepped into the tent, he was accosted by the bossy voice of none other than Percy Weasley, demanding, "Where have you been? You were supposed to be here an hour before the task starts!"

"Now, now, Percy," interrupted Ludo Bagman, "He's arrived no more than five minutes after Cedric, and there's still ten minutes before the task starts," before adding irritably under his breath, "And the only person here more than thirty minutes before the task was _you_.”

Harry meanwhile said nothing, simply directing his attention to Bagman for any last minute instructions before he went searching for whatever it was they’d stolen from him.

In the back of his mind he did idly wonder why Percy was there again instead of Mr Crouch, same as at the Yule Ball, and wondered if Mr Crouch was still ill and if it was from the same apparent sickness that Bagman had mentioned the Head of the Department of International Magical Cooperation had been out with for a couple weeks before he and Hermione had ran across Bagman in the Three Broomsticks, nearly a month and a half earlier. Mr Crouch’s absence was definitely something he’d have to pass on to Hermione when he finally saw her again after the task, but at the moment, just like at the Yule Ball, Harry was suffering from an acute attack of no curiosity.

They all just stood and sat there twiddling their thumbs for another five minutes, until at 9:25 Bagman finally stood up and instructed them to spread out along the edge of the lake. As the four of them got ready to find their stolen objects, Bagman briefly addressed the crowds on the other side of the lake to let them know the task was about to start.

At the sound of the shrill whistle signifying the start of the task, Harry waded into the icy cold lake, eating the ball of gillyweed Dobby had given him the morning before, trying not to hack back up the slimy, rubbery glob. As soon as its effects were complete, he dove into the water, off to find whatever had been stolen from him.

Forty minutes later, past the grindylows and with a bit of help from Moaning Myrtle, he'd finally found the mercity. As he swam through the outskirts of town, he could hear the merpeople singing, “An hour long you'll have to look, and to recover what we took...your time's half gone so tarry not, lest what you seek stays here to rot…."

Another warning that the object he had to take back would be lost forever if he couldn’t get it back up to the surface in under an hour.

He was becoming very irritated by this point with the merefolk, and the tournament judges and organizers, assuming they knew all about this theft and permanent loss. The tournament was supposed to be a challenge of their magical ability and a risk to their personal safety, not straight up theft of their rightfully owned possessions — whatever possession that might be, as he still didn’t have any idea what they could have taken from him.

But as he approached the statue in the center of town, he saw thorough the murky water something that was resolutely inconceivable —

For tied with seaweed to the tail of the merman statue seemed not to be four possessions, one stolen from each of the four contestants, but rather four actual, human beings.

A look of utter shock and horror crossed his face.

“Humans!?! But that’s kidnapping! Not taking something we’ll ’sorely miss’! And straight up murder if even just one of us fails to rescue our kidnap victim — 'they won’t come back’, 'what you seek stays here to rot' — What the bloody hell?! Do the judges know what the hell is happening down here?!"

He swam as fast as he could through the water to find out who these poor, innocent victims of this cruel game was, just to discover that he recognized all four victims with ease.

“Hermione! Ravenclaw Seeker! Krum's Yule Ball date, and what has to be Fleur’s little sister! This is straight up kidnap and murder!"

For tied to the merman statue were in fact Cho Chang, the Ravenclaw Quidditch seeker Cedric had gone to the Yule Ball with; the Durmstrang girl Krum had gone to the Yule Ball with; a young girl with silvery-hair that could only be Fleur's sister; and finally Hermione Granger, brightest witch of the era and his girlfriend.

Only the fine streams of bubbles that kept issuing from their mouths kept Harry from completely panicking that they were already dead, and enabled him to keep an almost level head. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself, knowing he still had over fifteen minutes to get Hermione back up to the surface, and his fellow hostage rescuers would have the same if they got there soon, before pulling out his wand.

He first tried casting “ _Relashio_ ”, the revulsion jinx at the seaweed, but it apparently didn’t work quite the same underwater as it did above. It had still made the grindylows release their grip on his legs when he’d been swimming there, but that had apparently been the jet of boiling hot water the spell created underwater, and not the normal magic that forced the target, living or inanimate, to release its grip on whatever it was holding, in this case the seaweed holding onto the statue’s tail and the kidnap victims. So then he tried casting the severing charm at the seaweed, shouting through the water, “ _Diffindo_!”

This fortunately worked, cutting right through the thick, slimy seaweed.

Once free, Hermione continued to just float where she was, drifting slightly from the ebb of the lake. Harry peered through the murky water around him, looking for the other champions. Time was getting short, and he couldn’t leave the three other innocent victims there to die.

Fortunately, a few minutes later, Cedric finally appeared, quickly followed by Krum. But there was still no sign of Fleur.

So with just minutes before the hour was set to expire, Harry pointed his wand at the seaweed holding the youngest victim in place, and cut Fleur's sister free before the mermen could even try to stop him. Storing his wand away again, he struggled to swim them both up to the surface. He could feel the effects of the gillyweed growing weaker with every passing kick of his legs, but just before it gave out completely, he broke through the barrier between water and air, and could breath again.

Immediately upon breaking the surface of the lake, both girls woke up from the curse they'd been under, causing Harry to breathe a sigh of relief that quickly turned into a short bout of sputtering as he swallowed water — but at least the victims were still alive, and not dead like they would have been if he hadn’t been able to find them or had left Fleur’s sister behind.

Once Hermione had woken up and collected her bearings — and helped Harry not to choke to death when he’d just rescued them from their own deaths — she helped Harry pull the younger girl towards the bank, where Fleur stood looking quite hysterical, restrained by Madam Maxime from dashing into the water to help them. But as soon as the three in the water had gotten close enough that they could stand up, Fleur did break free and rush into the shallows, throwing her arms around her sister as soon as she reached her.

Only when the four of them had reached the bank and climbed out onto dry land, did Fleur finally let go of her sister for Madam Pomfrey to take care of. Then she turned to where Harry stood, with his arms wrapped around Hermione in a noble, if slightly useless gesture of trying to warm her up from the cold water.

" 'Ou saved 'er, even though she was not your 'ostage!” she said breathlessly, bending down to kiss Harry twice on each cheek, and then once on each of Hermione's cheeks just for good measure.

Meanwhile, Dumbledore had gone over to the water’s edge to talk to the merchieftainess who’d surfaced, before huddling back with the other four judges. But Harry only just had time to notice this before Madam Pomfrey rounded him and Hermione up to force blankets around them and Pepperup Potion down their throats. Hermione found it odd that Madam Pomfrey gave them blankets instead of casting the spell over them that would make them and their clothes as warm and dry as if they had been hanging in front of a blazing fire, instead leaving them standing there still soaking wet, just under blankets now, but she didn’t say anything about it.

Soon, Ludo Bagman announced to the crowd that he and the other four judges had made their decision on the points. After going over the three champions, he finally came to Harry.

"Harry Potter used gillyweed to great effect, but he returned last, and well outside the time limit of an hour. However, the Merchieftainess informs us that Mister Potter was first to reach the hostages, and that the delay in his return was due to his determination to return all hostages to safety, not merely his own. Even though the hostages were never in any real danger, and Fleur’s hostage would have been safely returned to the surface at the end of the task had Harry not brought her up with his own hostage, most of the judges feel that this shows moral fiber and merits full marks. However...not _all_ agree, so Mr. Potter's score is forty-five points.”

From the glare Bagman had shot in Karkaroff’s direction near the end, Harry guessed that it was the Durmstrang headmaster who had been the one not to agree with the others, but he really couldn't have cared less. All four victims were alive and safe, and he’d survived another task.

“Finally, the third and final task will take place at dusk on the twenty-fourth of June. The champions will be notified of what is coming precisely one month beforehand. Thank you all for your support of the champions,” finished Bagman, dismissing them all to return to the castle to celebrate their respective champions or get started on an early lunch.

But as Harry and Hermione remained standing where they were to let most of the crowds clear out before they headed back up to the castle themselves, Ron stormed over the where Harry stood with his arms still wrapped around Hermione, and shouted, “What’d you bring Fleur’s hostage for, you prat?! Didn’t you hear Bagman? Dumbledore wouldn't have let any of them drown! How could you waste time down there acting the hero!? You could have easily won this task!"

Harry looked up at his former friend in surprise at being yelled at so vehemently, and wondering since when the redhead took such great interest in how he did in the tasks. So he asked as much —

“What does it matter to you whether I got fifty points, or forty-five points, or zero points? You’re not the one competing. What does my number of points matter to you?”

“How do you expect to win if you don’t get the most points?!” shouted Ron back at him. “This is a competition! How can you be the champion and win all the gold and eternal fame if you do stupid things like saving that bitch’s sister!?”

At hearing Ron call Fleur a bitch, Hermione spun around to give him a slap that would have made the slap she gave Draco the year before look like a loving pat on the cheek, but before she actually could, Ron was suddenly blasted backwards fifty feet, landing in the shallows of the freezing cold lake. Harry and Hermione turned together to see who cast the charm, to find Fleur subtly slipping her wand back into her pocket. When she saw them looking at her, she gave them a wink, before turning back to her sister and the conversation she was having with several of her schoolmates, like nothing had happened.

But now that Ron was no longer bothering them, Harry turned to Hermione and asked, “What Bagman and Ron said about you guys not being in any danger…?”

Hermione sighed.

“We weren’t, Harry,” she said, before adding urgently, “But don’t think badly of yourself because you didn’t know, and don’t think better of Dumbledore and McGonagall because we weren’t actually in any danger!

“Everything you and I knew about the task beforehand made it seem like whatever they stole — or kidnapped to be more precise, from your perspective at least — was going to be gone forever. So before you start questioning your decision to wait on the champions and then save Gabrielle as well as me, and whether you should have known that they wouldn’t actually murder anyone, I’m proud of you, Harry. You did the right thing, the only competitor to out of the three of you who actually made it that far to do so. The judges and tournament organizers or whoever made the egg clue are the ones who did wrong. This was their fault, not yours — thinking they needed to make you believe they would kidnap and then murder up to four students, just to make you complete the task in under an hour. Truly despicable and evil, honestly.”

To say that Harry’s heart felt a thousand times lighter at hearing her say this would have been the understatement of the century, even more so than saying several people were slightly surprised when Harry’s name came out of the goblet.

“Thank you,” he whispered to her, tears pricking the corners of his eyes, as he gave her the tightest hug he could.

Hermione hugged him back tightly, until he finally let go of her. But as he stepped back she took his hands in hers and said, “Also, just so you know, I was very strongly against all of this when McGonagall told me what they were doing last night — I nearly walked right out of her office, even knowing that no harm would come to me. It was just such a terrible thing to do to you guys, not knowing that we were completely safe regardless of whether you succeeded or not.

“But as I turned to walk out on them, wanting nothing to do with their cruel games, Dumbledore said that if I didn’t agree to do it, then you wouldn’t have a victim to rescue, and would therefore receive zero points for the task, since you wouldn’t be able to successfully return with a kidnap victim you didn’t have. And I knew, had you been there, that you would most likely say that you’d rather get zero points and know I was safe, but I also knew that you were tied for first place, and having the gillyweed to be able to complete the task with, it shouldn’t be too hard or dangerous for you and you would most likely do very well in this task, so I made the choice to stay. And I’m really sorry for how much worry I had to have caused you, both last night and this morning, and then when you got down to the mercity and saw us, so if you hate me for what I did I won’t blame you in the least.”

By the time she finished, her voice was cracking and Harry could see tears forming in her eyes, so he quickly hugged her to him again, not wanting her to feel guilty about the choice she made. Sure, had he been the one offered the choice, he would have had her safely by his side and taken the zero points for the task, but he completely understood the decision she made, and he _was_ still tied for the lead in the tournament because of it.

After holding her for a while, her face buried in his chest, Harry finally said softly into her bushy hair, “I’m not in the least bit upset with you, and I certainly don’t hate you. I’ll admit I would have gladly taken the zero points in exchange for knowing you were safe, but other than some minor panicking when I first saw the four of you, the task wasn’t that hard or dangerous, and I _am_ miraculously tied for first place against three actual champions three years older than me. Which is, of course, entirely thanks to you, on both tasks. So please don’t feel guilty or upset with yourself, because I’m certainly not upset with you.”

Hermione pulled back slightly so she could give him a watery smile.

“Thank you,” she whispered softly as she leaned up to kiss him.


	18. Chapter 18

As Harry and Hermione descended to the dungeons for Potions on Friday afternoon near the beginning of March, they were met with the Snake Nest all sniggering as they huddled together outside the Potions classroom door, reading something one of them was holding.

But a second later, Pansy spotted them, and giggled, "There they are, there they are!”

As the Snakes broke apart, Pansy tossed the magazine they’d been reading from to Hermione, saying loudly, "You might find something to interest you in there, Granger!”

Hermione caught the magazine and gave the Slytherin girl a bored look, before finally deigning to look down at the magazine she’d just been given. It was the latest issue of Witch Weekly. But before she had a chance to look for whatever the Snake Nest had been sniggering about, the dungeon door opened and Snape ushered them all into his lair of doom.

Hermione wasn't so stupid as to try reading anything other than the blackboard with the directions of the day’s potion on it in the middle of Snape's class, as curious as she might have been at why either her or Harry or both were in Witch Weekly, so she stuffed the magazine deep in her bag to pull back out and read at supper, before following Harry to the rearmost table in the dungeon as always. Pulling out the necessary ingredients once Snape had written the ingredients and instructions for the potion up on the board, she and Harry quietly concentrated on brewing their wit-sharpening potion, ignoring all of the Slytherins constantly looking in her and Harry’s direction like they seriously thought Hermione was going to try and read a magazine in the middle of _any_ class, let alone Snape’s, and waiting to see if she and Harry would be upset by the article.

But near the end of class, something occurred to distract the Slytherins’ attention away from Hermione's continued not reading of magazines in the middle of class. There was a knock on the door, and once Snape had bid the guest enter, it opened and the Durmstrang Headmaster, Karkaroff, came stalking in and up to Snape’s desk. From where they sat at the very back of the room, Harry and Hermione couldn’t hear what Karkaroff was saying to Snape, but he clearly looked agitated about something and was twisting his finger around his goatee. He stood there talking to Snape for a minute, before Snape started ignoring him and the foreigner proceeded to just hover behind Snape’s desk until the bell finally rang.

As Harry and Hermione packed up their belongings, they saw Karkaroff pull up the left-hand sleeve of his robe and show Snape something on his inner forearm, but from where they were in the back of the room they couldn’t see what it was, or hear what the two were saying to each other. But having more important things to concern themselves with, such as food and the Witch Weekly article, they left the classroom with the rest of the class, leaving the adults behind to argue about whatever it was they were arguing about.

Finally sitting down in the Great Hall for supper a few minutes later, Hermione pulled the magazine out of her bag to see what all the ruckus the Slytherins had been going on about was. It didn’t take her long to find the article in question, and she spread it out on the table between her and Harry to read.

~HP~

Harry Potter's Secret Heartache

A boy like no other, perhaps — yet a boy who has seemingly overcome every obstacle in his path. Deprived of love since the tragic demise of his parents, fourteen-year-old Harry Potter has found solace in his steady girlfriend at Hogwarts, muggleborn Hermione Granger. But is his seemingly idyllic relationship really all it seems?

Miss Granger is a plain but ambitious girl, and it turns out it might not be Miss Granger's doubtful natural charms that have captured the TriWizard champion's interest. In fact, he might not even actually be interested in her at all.

Fleur Delacour, a fellow champion, was seen kissing Harry after the second task, but so far nothing seems to have come of it, despite the French girl being far prettier than Miss Granger, along with being a fellow champion, something Miss Granger can’t claim. So could there be something to the anonymous source from inside Hogwarts claiming the muggleborn is using a love potion to keep the Boy-Who-Lived and youngest TriWizard champion trapped with her? It would certainly seem to be supported by what one of the girls at Hogwarts had to say.

"She's really ugly," says Pansy Parkinson, a pretty and vivacious fourth-year student, "but she'd be well up to making a Love Potion, she's quite brainy. I think that's how she's doing it."

Love Potions are, of course, banned at Hogwarts, and no doubt Albus Dumbledore will want to investigate these claims. In the meantime, Harry Potter’s well-wishers must hope that he can break through this enchantment, and next time bestow his heart on a worthier candidate.

~HP~

Harry and Hermione looked up at each other, barely able to keep from bursting out laughing. It was the most ridiculous thing either of them had ever read.

But before they could actually collect themselves enough to say anything about it to each other, they heard a voice from behind them hiss, "I told you! I told you not to annoy Rita Skeeter! She's made you out to be some sort of — of scarlet woman!"

Hermione burst out laughing, before turning around to look at the redhead.

"Scarlet woman?" she snorted, shaking with suppressed giggles. “Seriously, Ron?"

"It's what my mum calls them,” Ron growled back at her, offended at what he perceived to be an insult about his mother.

“Well, if that's the best Rita can do, she's lost her touch, along with possibly her mind," replied Hermione, as she rolled up Witch Weekly and stuck it back in her bag to glance over the rest of later. "What a laugh."

She then looked across the hall at the gang of Slytherins who’d given her the article, and who were once again watching her and Harry closely to see if they had been upset by the article. She gave them a sarcastic smile and wave. Then turning back to Harry, she asked him what he thought they should do the next day in Hogsmeade, giving the article no more of her time.

But the article, unfortunately, wasn’t done giving her any more of its time. Three days later, as Harry and Hermione were finishing up breakfast and watching the owl post fly in, waiting on her daily copy of the Prophet, a grey owl followed by four barn owls, a brown owl, and a tawny all landed at her plate, where Harry just barely saved her goblet of orange juice from getting knocked over in all the jostling. But none of them were carrying the Daily Prophet.

Hermione gave Harry a curious look before opening the letter from the gray owl. As she read it, her eyebrows rose slightly, before she rolled her eyes and handed the letter over to Harry to read saying, “People are such sheep — believing completely unsupported claims about people they don’t know anything about or have any connection to.”

Harry took the letter from her and read, YOU ARE A WICKED GIRL. HARRY POTTER DESERVES BETTER. GO BACK WHERE YOU CAME FROM MUGGLE.

“The rest the same?” asked Harry as he set it back down on the table.

“Yep — 'Harry Potter can do much better than the likes of you….', 'You deserve to be boiled in frog spawn….’,” began Hermione, before exclaiming, “Ouch!”

The last envelope she’d opened contained undiluted bubotuber pus, and her hands erupted in large yellow boils.

“Quick — get to the hospital wing!” exclaimed Harry. “I'll tell Professor Sprout what happened."

Harry had just begun gathering up the letters to toss in first fire he came across, when Ron sat down next to him and said pompously, "I warned her! I warned her not to annoy Rita Skeeter! Look at this one..." he said grabbing one of the letters out of the pile, and reading it out loud: "I read in Witch Weekly about how you are playing Harry Potter false and that boy has had enough hardship and I will be sending you a curse by next post as soon as I can find a big enough envelope.’ "

Snatching the letter away from the redhead, Harry stuffed them all down in his bag (except the one with the pus, which he just left on the table for someone with actual authority to take care of), and said, “Why are you so obsessed with Hermione’s fight with Rita? It’s not like it affects you in any way.”

And then he grabbed his bag up and strode out of the Great Hall towards the greenhouses, not giving Ron any chance to reply.

Herbology was a lonely affair without his best friend and plant partner, and he spent most of the class hoping she was okay — Madam Pomfrey was usually quite quick about healing injuries, no matter how extensive. But eventually the bell finally rung, and he headed down towards Hagrid’s hut praying she’d be along soon.

As he walked past the stone steps coming down from the castle, Pansy, who was descending with the rest of the Snake Nest, caught sight of him and shouted, "Potter, have you split up with your girlfriend? Why was she so upset at breakfast?”

“You really have no human decency, do you?” replied Harry, disappointedly shaking his head, even though inside he felt like replicating what Hermione had done to Draco the year before for Pansy’s part in sending Hermione to the hospital wing with her quote to Rita — and speaking of Rita, he wouldn’t mind slapping her as well, or at least charging her in the Wizengamot as an accessory to assault and possibly attempted murder, or something along those lines, for her article that had led to all this. But as that unfortunately wasn’t actually feasible as a fourteen year old, or in the magical world in general, he simply continued on, “And my girlfriend isn’t the least bit upset with me — you, on the other hand, might want to ask your pal Malfoy what happens when someone pisses off the brightest witch of the age.”

As Draco visibly shuddered in remembrance of the humiliation he’d suffered at the hand of the mudblood, Harry turned his back on them and continued walking down to Hagrid’s like nothing had happened. But as the Snakes walked up to where Harry was already waiting for class to begin a few minutes later, he saw Draco and Pansy arguing in a whisper, and guessed that Draco had never informed his girlfriend of his getting slapped into tomorrow by Hermione the year before. Unfortunately, this did nothing to keep him from starting to get seriously worried about Hermione when she still wasn’t back from the hospital wing as Care of Magical Creatures class began.

But at the very end of class, he finally spotted her walking across the grounds towards them from the castle. As she walked up, he noticed her hands were heavily scared and looked very sore based on how gingerly she was holding them. He also noticed Pansy Parkinson watching her beadily, though whether out of fear that she might be next on Hermione’s slap list, or gloating because of the injury she’d caused the smarter, prettier girl, Harry wasn’t positive — and he knew it was possibly both.

While Harry helped Hagrid put the nifflers in their cages after class was over, and Hermione stood nearby watching them, Hagrid looked over at her and asked, "What yeh done ter your hands, Hermione?”

Hermione explained to the half-giant all about the Witch Weekly article, and the hate mail she’d received that morning because of it, including the envelope with bubotuber pus in it.

"Aaah, don' worry," replied Hagrid, causing Harry to bristle slightly, as he felt it was very much something worth worrying over when people started sending you poisoned letters. But Hagrid continued on, ”I got some o' those letters an all, after Rita Skeeter wrote about me mum. 'Yeh're a monster an yeh should be put down.' 'Yer mother killed innocent people an if you had any decency you’d jump in a lake’ — things like that."

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Hagrid!” exclaimed Hermione, always thinking about others before herself. “I knew you said you’d gotten letters from people who wanted you gone, but I didn’t realize just how mean people could be to complete strangers until seeing what I got the mail I got this morning!"

“I' is wha’ i' is, and yeh two helped me realize something, Hermione,” said Hagrid as he stacked up the niffler cages against the wall of his cabin. “And tha' is tha' they're jus' nutters, Hermione. Don' open 'em if yeh get any more. Chuck 'em straigh' in the fire.”

And that is what Hermione promised to Harry is exactly what she would do with all the letters that they both knew would continue coming for the near future as they walked up to the Great Hall for lunch.

But no sooner had they sat down to eat, than Ron thudded into the seat across from them, looking thoroughly put out.

"Why didn't you tell me about the gold?” he demanded.

"What gold?" asked Harry in confusion. He couldn’t remember ever talking about gold with the redhead.

"The gold I gave you at the Quidditch World Cup," said Ron. "The leprechaun gold I gave you for my Omnioculars. In the Top Box. Why didn't you tell me it disappeared?”

It still took Harry several seconds to remember what on earth Ron was talking about.

“Oh. Um…because I completely forgot about it?” replied Harry when he finally did. “In case you forgot, there was a Quidditch World Cup match, I lost my wand, and then someone let off Voldemort’s mark _with_ my wand. Gold, or lack thereof, was pretty low on my list of concerns that night.”

After wincing at Voldemort’s name like always, Ron growled, “Must be nice — to have so much money you don't notice if a pocketful of Galleons goes missing.”

Harry just rolled his eyes, knowing nothing he could say would make Ron any less jealous or understand that Harry would much rather be poor with his parents than rich without them.

After a while, Ron muttered as much to himself as to Harry, ”I didn't know leprechaun gold vanishes. I thought I was paying you back. I hate being poor."

"Forget it — _seriously_ ," said Harry. “It was a gift — gifts aren't meant to be paid back, anyway. They’re _gifts_."

Ron continued to mutter to himself throughout the rest of lunch, but Harry and Hermione just tuned his whining out, Hermione telling Harry everything Madam Pomfrey had done to get her hands back to the reasonably usable condition they were currently in.

Hate mail, probably including more bioterrorism, continued arriving for Hermione over the next few weeks, but good to her promise to Harry, she gathered it all up each morning and threw it all in a fire as soon as she had the chance each day. But many of her haters had upgraded from regular hate mail to Howlers, which screamed their displeasure for the entire Hall to hear — not that everyone in the castle hadn’t already heard the contents of the article from the Slytherins screaming their own heads off about it to everyone interested in hearing or not, so it didn’t really make any difference.

It took all of two days for Harry and Hermione to get sick and tired of having to tell people that no, Hermione was not in fact assaulting and kidnapping him by making him infatuated with her using a love potion (though oddly enough, no one except the muggleborns actually seemed to realize that it _would_ be assault and mental kidnapping if she really was using a love potion), and that no, he had no romantic interest in Fleur whatsoever, no matter how pretty he did think she was, and how much time he and Hermione spent hanging out with her now that they’d become friends after he’d saved her younger sister’s life in the second task.

“Not that you’d actually know that if I really was love potioning you, as the love potion would make you think you really did only have feelings for me and not for Fleur who you really had feelings for,” commented Hermione to Harry one evening towards the end of the first week as they sat in front of fire on the couch in the Gryffindor common room. “That’s the pure evil of love potions, and why it’s completely despicable that they aren’t entirely banned from any use, ever, by anyone — the only way for a victim to realize they have been kidnapped and are being raped is to stop being given the love potion, or else to be given a bad batch that doesn’t work properly. It's essentially the perfect crime if you can keep it up — and people like Mrs Weasley and Ginny giggle about Mrs Weasley having made it when she was a young girl.”

The one good thing about the article, however, was that it gave Harry and Hermione something to joke about when they hung out with Fleur. The veela loved teasing Harry about supposedly being madly head over heels in love with her but unable to express it because he was being potioned by Hermione, something Hermione had no hesitation in encouraging when they were together. Additionally, since no one actually really knew the Beauxbatons, and she was a champion and veela on top of that, no one bothered her about the rumor that Harry really loved her, so she didn’t have to suffer the abuse of anyone inside or outside the castle like Hermione did.

Eventually, people finally got bored with the whole story, both adult haters outside the castle and fellow students inside, until like every other story that had ever been told and rumor that had ever been spread about Harry, this article faded into the background as well, and Harry and Hermione’s lives returned to as normal as they ever were at Hogwarts.

~HP~

But Rita’s article did still have one last act of vengeance to try to inflict on Hermione at Easter.

Towards the end of the Easter holiday, Harry and Hermione were sitting in the Great Hall eating breakfast, when they saw a large package being delivered by Errol to Ron where he sat a little bit down the table from them. As they watched him open it, they saw him pull out three chocolate eggs: two the size of dragon eggs and no doubt filled with homemade sweets like past years, and one smaller than a chicken egg.

He also pulled out a letter from inside the package that he quickly read over, before he stuffed it back in the wrappings, mumble something to himself that sounded to Harry and Hermione a lot like, "What they don't know won't hurt them."

"That seems like a lot of candy for one person, even if it is Mrs Weasley giving it to her son," commented Harry as he watched Ron hurriedly stuff the eggs in his bag.

"Based on what he just said, I'm guessing the other big one was supposed to be for you, and the tiny one for me," replied Hermione.

“Why wouldn’t she give you one the same size as me, if she’s giving either of us one at all?” asked Harry, confused. “And also, why _would_ she be sending us anything since we’re no longer friends with Ron?"

“Because she read the Witch Weekly article about me dating you, and the completely unsubstantiated claims that I’m poisoning you to do so,” answered Hermione. “Remember what Ron said right after Christmas, about her wanting you for Ginny and me for Ron? You and I dating completely fouls up both of those plans. As for sending us anything at all, she probably still assumes we’re friends with Ron — as I doubt Ron told her he’s failed in his mission to befriend you, Ginny isn’t going to admit that her only real connection to you — Ron’s friendship — is gone, and the twins are smart enough to know to let their mum believe whatever she wants to believe."

“Oh. Okay, that all makes sense,” replied Harry. “But shouldn’t she at least give you a few points for the rumor that you’re using a love potion to do so, when she made them herself as a girl?”

Hermione let out a wry chuckle. “Love potions are fine for her, and maybe Ginny to use — but certainly not for any girl taking her poor Harry away from her, or for any guy using the love potion on Ginny to take her poor Ginny away from her. Bluntly put, she’s a giant hypocrite — like saying she’s all for muggleborns and disagrees with other pureblood families that are anti-muggleborn, while still hating werewolves and part-giants and cross-species like that. Rules for thee, not for me.”


	19. Chapter 19

At the end of Transfiguration class on the twenty-seventh of May, Professor McGonagall held Harry back to let him know that the champions were expected on the Quidditch pitch that evening at nine.

So at a quarter till, Harry and Hermione left the Gryffindor common room, hoping Filch or Snape wouldn’t try to give them detention when they walked back up to their common room inevitably _after_ nine o’clock curfew on their way back from this meeting of champions and Harry, and made their way down to the pitch. Where they discovered that the normally smooth grass was covered in hedges crisscrossing in every direction. They made their way to the very center, hopping over hedges, to where the other champions and Ludo Bagman stood — not for the first time, Harry wondered if the others were always given times fifteen or thirty minutes before the time he was told to be there, or if they were all just really, really early arrivers for everything. As he and Hermione climbed over the last hedge and joined the group, Fleur hurried over to meet them and gave him a quick, tight hug, still beyond thankful for Harry having saved her sister in the previous task. Letting Harry go, she gave Hermione a quick hug as well, before all three of them walked back over to where Bagman and the others were standing.

As Bagman looked up at the sound of their arrival, he said in surprise, "Oh. Hi, Hermione — didn't expect to see you here." But before Harry or Hermione could say anything or defend her presence, he continued on, clearly unperturbed by her presence.

"Now, I imagine you can guess what we're making here?" he asked, looking around at the three champions and Harry (and Hermione) assembled around him.

When the champions merely stared at each other and the hedges for several long seconds, clueless, Hermione finally burst out, "It's a maze, you idiots!"

"Oh, yeah, so it is," mumbled the four competitors embarrassedly, looking around at what was now very obviously a maze.

Continuing on brightly as if the competitors had immediately recognized what was so very obviously to the most casual observer a maze, Bagman said, “That’s right! A maze! By the time of the third task, four weeks from today exactly, these hedges will be twenty feet tall. So the third task is really very straightforward — the TriWizard Cup will be placed in the very center of the maze, and the first champion to touch it will win.”

"We seemply 'ave to get through ze maze?" asked Fleur suspiciously. After the first two tasks, that seemed far too simple.

“There will be obstacles,” answered Bagman mischievously, bouncing on the balls of his feet with a glint in his eyes, like a predator playing with its prey. "Hagrid is providing a number of creatures...then there will be spells that must be broken...all that sort of thing, you know.”

“ _Oh…_ ” the five students let out in a collective sigh of understanding.

The three Hogwartians knew firsthand the types of creatures Hagrid could provide, and even the two guests had heard enough stories over their seven months in the castle to know these would be no ordinary, fluffy house pets they would have to be getting past. And after seven and four years of magical education, they all knew the plethora of highly dangerous spells and enchantments that could be cast to hinder their progress through the labyrinth. And simply knowing magic itself, the maze was unlikely to be the simple, straightforward kind of mazes muggles thought of when they heard the word ‘maze’ — all one had to do was look at the staircases and secret passageways of Hogwarts Castle itself to know nothing would be as it seemed.

"Now, the champions who are leading on points will get a head start into the maze,” continued Bagman, grinning at Harry and Cedric. "Then Mr. Krum will enter...then Miss Delacour. But you'll all be in with a fighting chance, depending how well you get past the obstacles. Should be fun, eh?”

The three champions and Harry all politely nodded, each secretly doubting ‘fun’ was going to be the word they would use to describe the task when they finally finished. The three boys were also giving the hedges malicious looks, affronted by the unruly state of the Quidditch pitch.

Seeing their looks, Bagman quickly added, "Don't worry boys, your Quidditch pitch will be back to perfection as soon as the tournament is over,” causing both girls to roll their eyes at the boys for not knowing that a former Quidditch star himself would never allow a Quidditch pitch to remain in such a disrespectful state of disarray.

"Very well…” said Bagman after several more seconds. “If none of you have any questions, we'll go back up to the castle, shall we — it's getting a bit chilly...."

Everyone nodded their hurried agreement, it still being rather cold for late May, and quickly turned to exit the maze, each heading back towards their respective domiciles. Walking hand in hand as they jumped over the hedges, Harry and Hermione discussed everything Bagman had told them, and what spells he would need to learn and practice to best be prepared for this third and final challenge.

As Krum headed off towards the Black Lake and the Durmstrang ship, and Fleur walked towards the Beauxbatons Carriage, Bagman hurried up alongside Harry and Hermione.

“How you feeling Harry?” he asked quietly as he caught up with them. “I can’t tell you any of the creature or spells you’ll have to face — I don’t know most of them myself — but I’d be glad to give you some spells that might be helpful to learn if you’d like. Spells most seventh years would have already learned that maybe as a fourth year you haven’t ran across yet,” he added on quickly at the end to make it seem less like he was trying to help Harry cheat, and more like he was just trying to even the playing field for him.

“Hermione’s practically a walking library, well advanced beyond our grade when it comes to the spells she knows, and the most powerful witch I’ve ever met — if anyone can get me well prepared for this task, it’s my girlfriend,” answered Harry politely as they continued up towards the castle, wondering yet again why Bagman was so keen on trying to get him to win.

“Oh —“ said Bagman, taken aback by Harry’s directness and confidence. “Well, um…I guess you’re all ready, then, aren’t you?”

“I sure am,” replied Harry, before squeezing Hermione’s hand slightly in his and quickening their pace, leaving Bagman behind still staring at them in surprise.

* * *

Monday afternoon, Harry was dozing off in another sweltering, mind-numbing Divination class, when he suddenly woke up screaming on the floor.

He’d just had a most vivid dream, and his scar was hurting like his skull was about to split in half. After shaking off Trelawney’s attempts to make him stay to see further, insisting that he needed to go to the hospital wing, he immediately headed straight towards Dumbledore’s office, just like Hermione had told him to at the end of the previous summer when he’d finally told her about the morning over the summer that he’d woken up with his scar hurting again.

Arriving outside the stone gargoyle, he remembered that he didn’t know the password. But knowing that it had always been sweets in the past, he began trying every wizarding candy he could think of, until finally as a joke he said, “cockroach cluster”, and the gargoyle sprung to the side for him. Knocking on the oak door at the top of the spiraling staircase, he heard Dumbledore bid him enter.

“What can I do for you, Harry?” the Headmaster asked once Harry had entered and closed the door behind him.

Dumbledore was sitting behind his desk, and Fawkes was perched like normal on his stand, the large office otherwise empty.

"Well, I just had a really vivid dream, Sir, that made me wake up with my scar hurting, and Hermione told me that if my scar ever hurt again, I should come to you,” answered Harry.

“Please — tell me everything from the very beginning,” said Dumbledore gravely, motioning for Harry to take the seat across from him.

"I was in Divination just now, and — er — I fell asleep,” began Harry, pausing for a moment as he wondered if a reprimand was coming his way for falling asleep in class.

But Dumbledore merely nodded and said, "Quite understandable. Continue,” making Harry smile very slightly.

“Well, I dreamt that Lord Voldemort was torturing Wormtail. Voldemort got a letter from an owl. He said something like, Wormtail's blunder had been repaired. He said someone was dead. Then he said, Wormtail wouldn't be fed to the snake — there was a snake beside his chair. He said — he said he'd be feeding me to it, instead. Then he did the Cruciatus Curse on Wormtail — and my scar hurt. It woke me up, it hurt so badly.”

As Dumbledore said nothing for several seconds after he had finished speaking, Harry finally said, “And that’s all. I immediately came here.”

"I see," said Dumbledore thoughtfully. "I see. Now, has your scar hurt at any other time this year, excepting the time it woke you up over the summer?"

"No, I — How did you know it woke me up over the summer?" asked Harry in confusion — the only people he had told about his scar hurting was Hermione, Ron, and Sirius.

"You are not Sirius's only correspondent," replied Dumbledore. "I have also been in contact with him ever since he left Hogwarts last year. It was I who suggested the mountainside cave as the safest place for him to stay.”

Dumbledore got up and walked over to the black cabinet on the other side of the room and opened it. From inside, he pulled out a shallow stone basin, and carried it over to his desk.

As Harry stared at the silvery light contained inside the basin that he’d never seen the likes of before, Dumbledore said, “This is a pensieve. I sometimes find, and I am sure you know the feeling, that I simply have too many thoughts and memories crammed into my mind.”

“ _Okay…_ ” said Harry slowly, still having no clue what a pensieve was.

"At these times, I use the pensieve. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form.”

"You mean...that stuff's your thoughts?” replied Harry, finally beginning to get some understanding of what a pensieve was, despite the headmaster's very roundabout and vague way of explaining it.

"Certainly,” said Dumbledore, like that was exactly what he’d been saying all along. As he drew his wand out from inside his robes, he continued, "Let me show you."

Placing the tip of his wand into his own silvery hair, near his temple, he slowly pulled it back. For a second it looked to Harry as though some of his hair were clinging to it, until Harry suddenly realized that it was actually a glistening strand of the same strange silvery-white substance that filled the pensieve. When Dumbledore added the strand to the rest of the swirling mass inside the stone basin, Harry saw his own face appear on the surface of substance. But a second later, Dumbledore reached down and swirled the contents of the basin with his wand, and Snape’s face smoothly replaced Harry’s.

This new face then said in a slightly echoey voice, "It's coming back...Karkaroff's too...stronger and clearer than ever…."

"A connection I could have made without assistance, but never mind,” sighed Dumbledore, as Harry wondered if this had anything to do with whatever he and Hermione had seen Karkaroff showing Snape on his inner forearm at the end of Potions class nearly three months earlier.

Dumbledore added several more thoughts to his pensieve, before sitting back down behind his desk and looking across at Harry once more, studying him.

“Professor — do you know why my scar is hurting me?” Harry asked now that Dumbledore’s attention was back on him.

"I have a theory, no more than that…” answered Dumbledore slowly. “It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred."

"But...why?"

"Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed," answered Dumbledore. "That is no ordinary scar."

"So you think...that dream...did it really happen?"

"I can only guess, but I would say it’s probable,” answered Dumbledore, before asking, "Harry — did you see Voldemort?”

“No, just the back of his chair,” answered Harry. "But there wouldn't have been anything to see, would there? I mean, he hasn't got a body, has he?” before realizing something and adding slowly as much to himself as Dumbldore, "But...but then how could he have held the wand?"

"How indeed?" muttered Dumbledore, lost in thought. "How indeed…?”

Neither of them spoke again for a long time, the Headmaster occasionally pulling more strands of memory from his mind as they both sat there thinking over everything Harry had seen in his dream, until Harry finally asked, “Professor — do you think he's getting stronger?"

"Voldemort?" said Dumbledore, looking up at Harry and sighing. "Once again, Harry, I can only give you my suspicions. The years of Voldemort's ascent to power were marked with disappearances. Bertha Jorkins has vanished without a trace in the place where Voldemort was certainly known to be last. And there has been a second disappearance, one which the Ministry, I regret to say, do not consider of any importance, for it concerns a Muggle. His name was Frank Bryce, he lived in the village where Voldemort's father grew up, and he has not been seen since last August. You see, I read the Muggle newspapers, unlike most of my Ministry friends. These disappearances seem to me to be linked. The Ministry unfortunately disagrees."

This time when silence fell over them again, Harry felt as though it was time for him to leave. He’d told the Headmaster of his dream, and learned a few things about Voldemort and his possible return in the process, and there was really nothing left for him to ask and Dumbledore didn’t seem interested in telling him anything more, and his stomach was beginning to grumble for supper.

So after a few more seconds, he finally said awkwardly, “I, uh — I should probably go.”

Dumbledore looked back up at him from where he’d been staring unseeing into the pensieve, and said, “Thank you for bringing your dream and scar hurting to me, Harry.”

As they both stood up and Harry headed towards the door, Dumbledore added quietly, “And Harry — good luck with the third task.”


	20. Chapter 20

Over the four weeks between being told that the final task would be an obstacle maze, and the day of the task itself, Harry and Hermione spent all their free time practicing spells Harry might need to get through the maze.

When they had first been thinking about a place to practice at breakfast the morning after Bagman informed them of the maze, Harry had suggested they find the unused classroom he’d stumbled across the Mirror of Erised in three and half years before. Hermione readily agreed, and when they walked into it later that afternoon after their final class of the day was over, they found it looking almost exactly as Harry had discovered it first year — the only thing missing was the mirror. The desks and chairs were still piled against the walls, the wastepaper basket by the teacher’s desk was still upturned, and it still had the layer of dust covering everything that it had had before, if not just a little bit thicker after another three and a half years of unuse.

So every spare moment they had long enough to practice, they headed there, a private, secluded location where no one would walk in on them.

Due to all the time they spent practicing, and the fact final exams were coming up the week leading up to the third task, as the first day of exams approached Harry began feeling more and more guilty about all the studying time of Hermione’s he was taking up. So he tried to tell her repeatedly that he could practice on his own some, that she had exams to study for that he didn’t, but she wasn’t having any of it.

“Harry! Honestly! I could probably pass my OWLs in every important subject right now if they’d let me — I’m not worried about passing fourth years!” she finally burst out after the dozenth time he told her he could practice alone if she wanted to go study, glaring at him and almost seeming actually angry with him.

Harry wisely refrained from mentioning it again.

So by the time the day of the final task arrived, Harry felt as confident as he felt he ever could going into a still mostly unknown task. He felt like he’d learned half the library, and just hoped he could still remember it all when he got into the maze, and didn’t panic and forget everything Hermione had taught him over the past month.

~HP~

At breakfast the morning of the final task, Harry was debating piling a second round of sausages onto his plate to eat, when Hermione opened her daily copy of the Daily Prophet and almost immediately choked on the swig of pumpkin juice she’d just taken.

“You okay?” asked Harry concernedly, patting his girlfriend on the back.

“Rita again,” choked out Hermione once she’d mostly caught her breath, spreading the front page of the newspaper out in front of them so he could read the witch's latest story with her.

She had barely even made it to the end of the first paragraph, when she had to grouse, "Funny for her to talk about suitability of you competing when A, it’s a supposedly unbiased magical artifact that chooses the champions, not any person or persons, and B, your suitability is technically zero, given the fact you’re underaged and shouldn’t have been in the goblet to begin with."

“Given how many rules we’ve broken in the four years we’ve been here, it’s also definitely arguable that neither of us are suitable for attending Hogwarts period, regardless of what evidence she has,” smirked back Harry.

Hermione rolled her eyes, replying, “But we’re a witch and wizard, which makes us completely suitable for attending a school of witchcraft and wizardry, which is what concerns her and any journalistic integrity she might pretend she still has.

“ _And..._ then she immediately throws integrity out the window with two bold-faced lies,” continued Hermione reading the next sentence. “Because unless I’m forgetting something or you failed to tell me something, a month ago in Divination was the first time you’ve ever collapsed because of your scar. And you never complain to anyone about it hurting.”

“Dementors, last year,” answered Harry glumly. “Wasn’t because of my scar, but I did collapse on the train, and in one Quidditch match.”

“Oh…yeah — forgot about that, but Draco certainly wouldn’t have,” replied Hermione with a sigh. “Not really sure three incidents counts as ‘regularly’, though.”

“Oh, I highly doubt Draco said three — having told her the word ‘regularly’ sounds a lot more like him,” said Harry, before adding, “And speak of the devil — right on time.”

For at that moment, none other than Draco himself had shouted out across the hall, "Hey, Potter! Potter! How's your head? You feeling all right? Sure you're not going to go berserk on us?”

“Nope — just on you. Everyone else is safe,” shouted Harry right back, before looking back down at the newspaper to continue reading, catching the grin on Hermione’s face out of the corner of his eye.

He grinned back only for a second though, as Hermione soon asked, “But how could he have told her about you collapsing in Divination, as he wasn’t anywhere near there? Also, either she’s lying again or this was meant to come out some two weeks ago, as it’s been three and a half weeks since that class, since it was the Monday after we were told about the maze, which is certainly not ‘Monday last’ as she wrote.”

“Maybe someone in class told someone else what happened, and he overheard them,” answered Harry dully. “It’s not like anyone’s afraid to share rumors about me around here. And I never claimed my 'scar was hurting too badly to continue studying’, I simply said I needed to go to the hospital wing because of a bad headache — though I guess after clutching my scar as I woke, it wouldn’t be hard to make the leap to it being my scar that was causing the headache, and I did leave class so technically I guess my headache was ‘hurting too badly to continue studying’, so I guess she’s actually journalistically okay on that one.”

“Except you clearly weren’t studying, you were dozing off. So if anything, she should have said your ‘scar was hurting too badly to go back to sleep for the rest of class’,” smirked Hermione. “But fair point about Draco hearing it from someone else telling someone else telling someone else.”

They continued reading on, occasionally muttering to themselves about something else ludicrous Rita wrote, until a few paragraphs later they ran upon the section about Harry being a parseltongue.

“Well, _duh!_ he concealed from the public that you’re a parseltongue!” burst out Hermione. “Because _this_ is how you react when you do find out! No child deserves the bigotry and abuse the entire wizarding community would rain down on them because of something they were born with and had no control over having! It’s the exact same as Hagrid, and Dumbledore never sharing that Hagrid is half-giant — we all saw how _that_ turned out for him!”

“I really am kind of surprised that no one outside of the castle ever heard about me being a parseltongue, though,” commented Harry thoughtfully. “Did none of the students write letters to their mums, who then gossiped about it to their neighbors, and so on and so forth until the entire wizarding world knew? I guess Dumbledore really did hush it all up somehow if this is as big of news as Rita clearly thinks it is.”

“I don’t know,” replied Hermione with a shake of her head. “But it does almost seem like absolutely nothing gets out of the impenetrable walls of this castle sometimes. I hate to be conspiratorial, especially about the side we consider to be the better side, but does Dumbledore have someone checking owls to make sure nothing he doesn’t want to get out about what occurs inside the castle does? I’d hate to think that that could be true, and we aren’t in the wizarding world at large to actually know what is and isn’t known, but there does seem to be a lot that occurs within these walls that _should_ be common knowledge and even investigated by the Aurors, that never is.

“The one thing I do know, though,” Hermione continued on with the article, "is the fact that Draco highly stylized his recounting of the dueling club incident. But as for making friends with werewolves and giants, Hagrid’s only a half-giant, she’s the one who let that cat out of the bag, and from everything I heard, three-quarters of the school loved Lupin — everyone except the Slytherins, basically. And similarly, Hagrid is well-known and liked by a lot of adults who’ve come through Hogwarts over the past half-century, and students here now — so neither of those friendships are in the least uncommon.

“And then of course there’s the fact that actually investigating any wizard capable of parseltongue purely because of that is a basic human rights violation — just replace ‘parseltongue’ with ‘black skin color’, and watch the fireworks fly. When in reality, they’re the same exact thing — traits you are born with that you had no control over and can’t do anything about. So while an investigation into _you_ would probably be a great thing, as they’d discover your abusive relatives and maybe actually do something about it, which could help you, if they did investigate you because you can speak parseltongue there is no logical reason they couldn’t go on to investigate someone simply because they have a certain skin color, or hair color, or are a certain sex. All of which would be human rights violations.”

“ ’Serpents are often used in the worst kinds of Dark Magic’ — aren’t wands, cauldrons, and robes, as well?” asked Harry rhetorically, reading on. “I’d guess everything is used in some kind of dark magic or another, and lots of things used in ‘good’ magic are also frequently used in dark magic. It’s all magic — it’s got to use most of the same stuff, there’s only so much magical stuff in existence to be used.”

“And most so-called ‘dark magic’ has completely good uses as well if you wanted to use them for that,” added Hermione. “Dark versus light or good magic, is all about semantics and trying to make the magic you use sound acceptable while the magic your enemy uses sound bad and evil, when in reality it’s all in how you use it. Dark magic can be used for good just as ‘light’ magic can be used to murder. Almost all magic we learn here at Hogwarts, if applied in specific ways, could murder or torture people — but Wingardium Leviosa and forgetfulness potion are still taught to first years at a school known as a ‘good’ school.”

“Good point,” agreed Harry, before literally laughing out loud as he continued to read on. “ 'Albus Dumbledore should surely consider whether a boy such as this should be allowed to compete in the TriWizard Tournament’ — isn’t that exactly what he did when my name came out? Or — at least the other two headmasters and Snape certainly did. And it was Mr Crouch who said I had to compete because my name had come out and it was a binding magical contract, not Dumbledore. Doesn’t seem like all the considering in the world could change the fact I had to compete. There’s certainly lots of times I’d have willing given up and stopped competing if I could — hell, I would right now if that was actually an option. Not have to try to make it through a dangerous maze and just get to watch the three champions do it? — Sign me up.”

Hermione laughed with him, before chuckling, “Just don’t resort to using all those dark arts your muggle relatives and Hogwarts have taught you in an attempt to win since you still do have to compete. I mean, we all know you’d do anything for a bit of power — or so Draco says, despite the fact it kind of seems like you’re the most powerless wizard here, between having to live with your abusive relatives in the summer, Mrs Weasley trying to stick you with her daughter without your consent, and just the general amount that absolutely everything bad that occurs in this castle seems to happen to you.”

Shaking their heads at Rita’s latest propaganda, Hermione folded up the newspaper and stuffed it into her bag, knowing nothing else in there could be all that bad after that cover article, as Harry decided he really did want that second round of sausages now, and piled them onto his plate and began eating them.

~HP~

As the end of breakfast neared, and with it the time for Harry and Hermione to head up to Binn’s classroom for the final day of exams to begin (for Hermione, at least — Harry had been spending all his time exempt from exams sitting in the back of class reviewing spells for the tournament), Professor McGonagall walked up to them.

"Potter, the champions are congregating in the chamber off the Hall after breakfast,” she told him curtly.

“Uh…why?” asked Harry, confused. “The task isn’t until tonight, and we already know what it is — what more instructions could Bagman or Crouch have to give us?”

"The champions' families are invited to watch the final task, you know. This is simply a chance for you to greet them,” answered their Head of House sternly, immediately walking away before Harry could ask any more questions, like the obvious, ‘ _And you think the Dursleys came?_ ’

But since he couldn’t ask that as she was no longer there to ask, Harry turned to Hermione and asked instead, “Did you know that? Because I certainly didn’t.”

“Nope,” answered Hermione, shaking her head. “I never read anything about the champions' families coming to watch the final task, and I never heard anything said, either — and I’ve been with you every time the judges told you anything about the tournament since right before the first task, so unless they told you before that, I’d have heard it there, too, if anyone actually told you.”

“Well, girlfriend, want to come with me to see who McGonagall thinks qualifies as my family, since we both know the muggle Dursleys were neither invited, nor would they have come had they been, yet McGonagall obviously thinks there’s _someone_ in there for me?” asked Harry. “It can’t be your parents, could it? We are dating after all, surely that news has reached the ears of the professors by now…."

“Of course I’ll come with, boyfriend,” replied Hermione, taking his hand in hers. “And I’m almost positive it’s not my parents, or they would have told me. Plus, like you said with the Dursleys, they’re muggles — no way they got an invite."

They got up and leisurely walked over to the door leading into the side chamber. But as they approached the door, a thought suddenly entered Hermione’s mind, and she held Harry back. Peeking her head around the corner into the room, she quickly pulled it back.

“As it just dawned on me — it’s Mrs Weasley and Bill,” said Hermione quietly.

Harry looked at her in surprise. “But why?” he asked. “They’re not my family like Professor McGonagall said, and we’re not even friends with Ron anymore.”

“I hate to be conspiratorial, but maybe Mrs Weasley's plans for pairing off her youngest two runs deeper than just in her family,” answered Hermione with a shrug. "But that’s just a possible theory, certainly not supported by anything we actually know."

“So what do we do now?” asked Harry.

“Well…that’s entirely up to you, of course — whether you want to go in there and talk to her and Bill, or not,” answered Hermione slowly. She knew what she’d prefer he do, what she’d certainly do if it were her, but this was his decision not hers, and she wasn’t going to try to sway him one direction or the other.

“Not particularly,” answered Harry. “And especially not if everything Ron said at Christmas about her trying to put me with Ginny and you with Ron are true. And I haven’t forgotten about the tiny Easter egg she sent you, either.”

“Well, technically we’re still only guessing about that one, but I understand what you mean,” said Hermione. “Now as for what you do, if you’re serious about not meeting her — or at least not now, as I’m sure she’ll track us down at lunch or dinner which we can’t avoid — then I suggest continuing with the original plan of sitting in the back of class studying for tonight, while I regurgitate magical history that has nothing to do with Voldemort or any of the other problems currently facing the wizarding community, which we could actually learn from in order not to repeat the mistakes of our forefathers."

So Harry and Hermione turned from the chamber door and headed back out through the Great Hall, and up to the History of Magic classroom.


	21. Chapter 21

As Harry and Hermione entered the Great Hall a few hours later for lunch, they found the twins' mother already sitting at the Gryffindor table, staring straight at the door.

“Looks like no way around this, she’s already seen us,” muttered Hermione under her breath to Harry as they continued on towards the table. “Might as well pick seats nearby enough for her to talk to us, or she’ll just move to wherever we sit.”

Harry nodded, so Hermione led them to seats several down from Mrs Weasley and Bill to force some space and people between them, but not so far Mrs Weasley could justify moving right next to them.

As soon as they sat down, Mrs Weasley said overly brightly, “Surprise! Thought we'd come and watch you, Harry!” Then turning towards Hermione, she added stiffly, with a cold expression suddenly on her face, "Hello, Hermione."

“Oh, for God’s sake, woman!” exclaimed Hermione irritatedly. “After lashing out at Percy about how Rita is wretched, and not to blame Mr Weasley for what she wrote back at the end of summer after the Quidditch World Cup, _now_ you’re suddenly going to start believing her?!”

“So you’re _not_ dating Harry?” replied the Matriarch cooly, as if she didn’t believe the muggleborn.

“ _No…_ I’m not using any love potions,” answered Hermione. "I’m a muggle — I know what rape is, and what date rape drugs are. I would _never_ make a love potion even if my life depended on it, unlike _certain_ people at this table.” Here she glared hard at the Matriarch. “As for whether I’m dating Harry or not, first off it’s absolutely none of your business as you are neither of our families, but yes — I am absolutely dating Harry Potter, and have been ever since the Yule Ball he invited me to go with him to. And neither of us care about your opinion of it, so you can just shove it."

Mrs Weasley looked taken aback at being addressed so forcefully, before assuming a highly affronted look.

So before a full on cat fight could break out (not that he had any doubt Hermione would win so long as none of the professors interfered, he just didn’t trust them not to interfere and they would indubitably side with Mrs Weasley without hearing any of the argument first), Harry looked at Bill and said more loudly than normal, “Hi, Bill. How are you?”

“I’m great,” answered Bill, sensing Harry’s objective and following along. “Charlie said you were incredible against the Horntail. Wish I could have seen it myself.”

“Just glad I survived,” answered Harry, before turning to Hermione and asking, “So how did the exam go?”

Hermione immediately launched into a thorough tale of everything on the test, easily taking up the rest of the lunch period so Mrs Weasley couldn’t try to mollycoddle Harry like normal, and he didn't have to suffer through trying to politely talk with her.

But when Hermione stood up to head to her afternoon exam, and Harry stood up with her, trouble started again.

“Harry, dear, since you’re exempt from exams, we thought you could show us over the grounds,” said Mrs Weasley brightly, not even bothering to try to frame it as a question, asking if he’d like to show them around.

“I’ve been using the exams to study for tonight’s task,” replied Harry politely, but firmly. “I’m exempt from exams expressly so I can prepare for this task — I’m not going to waste that time I’ve been given. So if you’ll excuse us, we have an exam to be attending.”

And with that he turned and led the way out of the Great Hall, leaving a gaping Mrs Weasley staring after him and Hermione, unable to comprehend how Harry might prefer preparing himself for the highly dangerous task that lay before him that night, instead of purposelessly walking around the grounds he walked every day.

Once outside the Great Hall and down a secret corridor that was a shortcut to the last exam of the year, Hermione spun Harry back against the wall and kissed him soundly.

When they broke apart, Harry looked at her in surprise and confusion, asking, “What was that for? Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“For handling Mrs Weasley so well back there, and putting her in her place about wasting the day instead of getting ready for what should theoretically be the hardest of the three tasks since it’s the last and certainly the most important. You were so very articulate, I almost thought I was listening to myself for a second there,” answered Hermione with a smile, before adding with a smirk, “And just because I can.”

“Never a bad reason in my opinion,” replied Harry with a smirk of his own, before saying, “But perhaps you should wait until later for the next round so we’re not late for the exam.”

~HP~

Hermione had hoped to entirely avoid Mrs Weasley at supper that night, but when the evening feast came and she noticed that not only was Mr Crouch absent yet again, but that it was Cornelius Fudge himself who was replacing him instead of Percy like at the Yule Ball and second task, she was too curious not to try to find out what was going on.

So she compromised and asked Bill, “Where’s Mr Crouch, and why is the Minister replacing him instead of Percy like the last two times?”

But it was still Mrs Weasley who answered. “Mr Crouch hasn’t been seen since before Christmas, so Percy’s been called in to discuss the instructions Mr. Crouch has been sending in to him for the past seven or eight months. And apparently someone thinks there's a chance the instructions weren't genuinely written by Mr Crouch, so they’re not letting Percy fill in as the fifth judge tonight like normal. Cornelius Fudge is doing it instead.”

“What is it with the Ministry taking forever to care that people are missing?” muttered Hermione mostly to herself, shaking her head. “It took months before anyone started looking for Bertha Jorkins, and now over half a year before anyone thinks it’s strange enough that the Head of a Department hasn’t been into the office a single time to bother looking into it."

But it did give her something to think about. Mr Crouch had been missing since before Christmas, which when combined with Bertha Jorkins and the muggle Harry had told her Dumbledore had mentioned when he went to the headmaster with his dream, made three missing people in a year already containing the Dark Mark for the first time in thirteen years. Plus there were the two highly detailed dreams Harry’d had showing that Voldemort was alive and kicking and growing in power. But all that was for another time, as her only concern at the moment was for Harry, and his survival through the final task.

It was the last chance for whoever had entered his name to do whatever they’d entered his name for, and it looked to be the perfect opportunity, as the inside of the maze was going to be completely hidden from the view of everyone except Mad-Eye and his magical eye. But she kept these worries to herself, knowing Harry would already be on his utmost guard simply to survive the spells and creatures inside the maze, so there was no point in scaring him or worrying him further by telling him her own fears.

However, when Dumbledore called for the four champions to follow Bagman down to the stadium at the end of supper, Hermione did stand up with him and join him on the walk down to the Quidditch pitch, running over all the spells they'd been practicing for the last four weeks with him, trying to reassure him and help him be less nervous, and do the same for herself.

Arriving at the stadium entrance, Hermione pulled him slightly off to the side and gave him a passionate kiss, trying not to think that there was the very real possibility that this could be the last time she ever saw him if the worst were to occur.

When they broke apart, Harry took her hand and squeezed it tightly, saying as reassuringly as he could, “See you on the other side, Hermione.”

Then they parted ways, Harry onto the field and Hermione into the front row of the stands, trying to blink back the tears threatening to escape the corners of her eyes.


	22. Chapter 22

Hermione watched Harry disappear into the maze — all she could do now was pray.

The following two hours were the longest of her life, having no clue what was going on in the maze before her. Fifteen minutes after Bagman first blew his whistle to start Harry and Cedric, she saw Mad-Eye apparate out of the maze carrying Fleur to the medical tent, despite having seen no red sparks sent up. Looking back on the night later on, she supposed she should have realized then that something odd was going on, but at the time she merely brushed it off as either she hadn’t been paying attention when Fleur sent them up, or else some part of the magic of the maze made it so that only the patrollers could see the sparks.

But twenty minutes or so later disproved that theory, even though she didn’t consciously think of it at the time, as she _did_ see red sparks coming up from out of the maze, and less than a minute later saw Professor Flitwick appear levitating Krum, who looked like he'd been stupefied. Hermione briefly wondered if a certain section of the maze shot spells at the contestants who went through that section, and was thankful she’d taught and perfected the shield charm with Harry, so he would be able to deflect any such spells the maze tried throwing at him.

But after that, there was nothing.

Finally, after what felt like hours and hours, though in reality was only about an hour and a half later, there appeared a blue light at the edge of the maze close to where Hermione was sitting in the stands, and two figures suddenly slammed into the ground. The person clutching onto the TriWizard Cup with one hand and onto the other person with their other hand had landed face first against the ground, while the other person lay spread-eagle on his back, just looking wrong.

Sheer panic filled Hermione for a split second, as she had no clue who the two people were, whether one of them was Harry or not, and whether her boyfriend was alive and well and safe, or missing, kidnapped, injured, or even dead. But then she recognized the shaggy mane of raven hair that he'd insisted on letting grow out into a mess that year as the person laying face first on the grass, and a second later that the figure on his back looking completely wrong was Cedric Diggory, and half of her panic disappeared as she at least knew _where_ Harry was, even if she didn’t yet know _how_ he was.

Instantly upon recognizing Harry, she without thought hurdled over the railing down onto the pitch, and ran towards him, her heart pounding. Given the fact he was holding onto the TriWizard Cup and Cedric’s arm she thought he was at least alive, but something was definitely still wrong. Despite holding the TriWizard Cup, he certainly didn’t look like he'd just won, or even lost, and why was Dumbledore and the other professors running towards Harry nearly as fast as she was?

Collapsing to her knees next to her boyfriend, she was completely oblivious to the gasp, and then deafening noise the crowd made behind her, barely even conscious of the fact Dumbledore had arrived at the same moment she had, and was also crouching over him.

But as her hand landed on Harry’s back, she let out a small sigh of relief — he was at least breathing, she could feel his back rising and falling slightly with each heavy breath he took.

~HP~

The world came crashing back around him, and he struggled to hold on.

He’d landed somewhere on grass, because his face was pressed flat against it, and he still had the TriWizard Cup and Cedric’s body because he could feel his hands clutching both, but that was all he knew. The ground beneath him felt like it was tossing and rolling like the deck of a ship, so he clutched a little tighter to the two objects he was holding onto to try to keep himself steady, and from passing out from the darkness trying to push in at the edges of his mind.

He vaguely recognized loud noises and screams and footsteps all around him, but was too exhausted and in too great a state of shock at the moment to try to figure out what they meant or where they were coming from. All he knew was that everything around him seemed like a nightmare.

The only relief he had, the only thing that kept him from completely losing his tenuous grip he still had on reality, was that the quiet, logical part of his brain, that sounded most similar to a certain bushy-haired girl he knew, reassured him that he was finally safe. He didn’t know how he knew it, how the part of his brain that had sounded like his now girlfriend for years knew it, but he somehow knew he was no longer in danger from Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and was somewhere that could more or less be considered safe, somewhere where he had at least a temporary reprieve from trying to be killed.

Through the haze his mind was in at the moment, he felt a small and somehow familiar hand rest on his back, and then shortly after a different pair of hands, a strong, yet still somehow comforting pair of hands roughly flip him over, but he didn’t fear that they were going to hurt him — or maybe he was just too exhausted to care anymore. He also felt the hand that had been on his back become two hands clutching at his arm, and he finally opened his eyes to find his girlfriend and Dumbledore staring down at him from the starry sky above. As soon as he recognized Hermione, his rock through everything he’d ever gone through since starting Hogwarts, he immediately dropped the TriWizard Cup he’d still been clinging onto with his life and grabbed her arm instead, clinging to her to keep him steady and safe once again. He used the strength that seemed to flow from Hermione through him to try to steady his scattered thoughts slightly, and tell Dumbledore what had happened.

~HP~

Clutching Harry was all she could do, as she felt a wave of terror pass through her as the reality of Diggory's dead body next to them finally hit her. Whatever had happened, it could have happened to Harry, and she could have lost him forever. But it hadn’t, and she tried to remind herself of this as she clung to him like her life depended on it, just barely registering that he had grabbed hold of her as well.

As her boyfriend tried to explain to Dumbledore — and now Fudge and everyone else who was pushing and shoving around her — what had happened, and the crowds now surging around them became louder and more frantic and harried, she continued to just cling to him, unable to take in any of what he was saying to the Headmaster, but needing to reassure herself that he was still alive, still there — and hopefully doing the same for him.

But far too soon, Dumbledore had lifted Harry to his feet and out of her grasp, and someone else was pulling him away through the crowds, and she was left sitting there on her knees weeping silently alone, as the crowds continued to push and shove and gasp and shout all around her, paying her no attention.

~HP~

He felt someone dragging him off towards the castle, pushing their way through the crowds. He tried telling whoever it was that Dumbledore had told him to stay, but they paid no attention to him, and he was too weak to do anything but be pulled along with them. They slowly crossed the grounds back up to the castle together, but it wasn't until he heard the clunk of a wooden leg on the stone steps leading into the castle that he realized it was Mad-Eye.

Then Mad-Eye was asking him about what had happened, and he did his best to answer, to tell him about Voldemort’s return, as the professor led him somewhere through the halls of Hogwarts.

~HP~

Soon after Harry had been taken away from her, she realized that Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape were hurrying away from the crowds towards the castle at a much more urgent pace than would be expected to simply check up on Harry in the hospital wing.

Trying to pull herself together, she followed after them at a run, slowing down to match their brisk walk when she'd almost caught up to them — she might have been Harry's boyfriend, but she doubted her presence would be much appreciated by the professors at the moment. But a dark sense of foreboding she couldn’t explain told her she couldn’t let them out of her sight.

Much to her surprise, when they got to the castle, instead of heading towards the hospital wing like she’d expected, the professors made for the third floor, where the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and teacher's office were located.

* * *

Mad-Eye had just finished explaining his manipulations to Harry when the door was blasted into smithereens by three deafening _Stupefy_ ’s, and Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, and Snape burst in, Hermione right behind them. She rushed over to Harry, throwing her arms around him as tightly as she could, as the three adults leveled their wands at a now unconscious Mad-Eye, who'd been thrown backwards and onto the floor by the force of the spells.

Throughout Dumbledore's explanation of what had really been going on, and then Crouch Jr's own confession under the influence of Veritaserum, Hermione clung to Harry, and Harry clung back, too numb to feel anything. At the beginning Professor McGonagall had tried to pull Harry away from her to take him to the hospital wing, but she only clung tighter and Dumbledore thankfully insisted Harry stay, and no one had tried to move her or Harry after that.

Once Dumbledore had bound Crouch Jr and asked McGonagall to stand guard over him, he led Harry and Hermione up to his office, where they found a human Sirius waiting for them. As Harry and Hermione sat next to each other in front of Dumbledore's desk holding hands, Fawkes flew across the room and landed on Harry's knee. With his free hand, Harry stroked the beautiful gold-and-scarlet plumage of the remarkable bird, as Dumbledore told Sirius everything Crouch Jr had confessed to.

Finally sitting down at his desk, Dumbledore leaned forward and looked directly at Harry.

Knowing before Dumbledore even asked, that he was about to question him about everything that had taken place in the graveyard, Harry tried to summon up what little strength he had left to answer. As Hermione squeezed his hand encouragingly, the phoenix let out a soft, quavering note which filled Harry with an unexpected resolve, and he began telling Dumbledore everything, from the moment he'd been yanked from the maze by the portkey. Sometime in the middle of his recounting, he realized that Hermione had laid her head on his shoulder, silently reassuring him that she was there, and that everything he had experienced that night was over with for the time being. Harry finally finished his tale, feeling much lighter than he had before he'd begun, as if retelling everything had allowed all the pain and heartache to flow out of him.

When he had finished, he watched as Fawkes fluttered from his knee down to the floor next to his injured leg, and let a few pearly white tears leak out of its eyes onto the broken skin to heal it from the spider, the same way it had in the Chamber of Secrets two years prior after the basilisk.

As the phoenix flew back up to its perch a few moments later, Harry could hear Dumbledore praising his bravery through the whole ordeal he’d suffered, but Harry was hardly paying attention. All he could focus on was Hermione sitting next to him, his hand still clasped tightly in hers and her gripping it like she was afraid if she ever let go he would disappear from her again and not be so fortunate this time. He squeezed back as well as he could through his exhaustion, more than anything just wanting some time alone with her to do nothing but simply be.

But that wasn’t to happen, as Dumbledore insisted they go back down to the hospital wing for Harry to spend the night there, which from more than his fair share of experience with the hospital wing over the four years he’d attended Hogwarts, he knew would be anything other than peace and time alone with his girlfriend.

Hermione also knew this would mean having to deal with a mollycoddling Mrs Weasley as well, as there was no way the Matriarch wasn’t already lying in wait for them in the hospital wing, as that was doubtlessly where she immediately went once she’d seen Harry had been taken away from the stadium. And just as she’d expected, when the four of them entered the hospital wing five minutes later, they found Mrs Weasley pestering a harassed-looking Madam Pomfrey, who was insisting for doubtlessly the dozenth time that she didn’t have a clue where Harry was, but that he certainly wasn’t there.

Fortunately, as they entered and Mrs Weasley spotted Harry, Dumbledore headed her off. As Harry and Hermione hurried to slip behind the curtain of the bed Madam Pomfrey ushered him to, they heard Dumbledore tell the Weasleys not to question Harry until he was ready to talk on his own, and certainly not that night.

At which point Mrs Weasley immediately rounded on the twins and Ginny — who hadn’t made any move towards Harry when he entered, instead waiting for him to come to them — and hissed, as though they were the ones attempting to be nosy and not her, "Did you hear? He needs quiet!"

Rolling her eyes, Hermione stepped with Harry behind the curtain and helped him change from his robes into his pajamas without falling asleep standing up, and then helped him into the bed.

Before moving the curtain back again to allow the Weasleys to visit him, Madam Pomfrey quickly waved her wand over Harry to make sure there weren’t any injuries that needed taken care of. Content that he was as in as good a condition as could be expected given the unknown circumstances he’d clearly been through, as no one had thought it important enough to tell her, the doctor, what had actually happened to her patient, she removed the privacy curtain and headed to her office to get him a sleeping potion.

As Mrs Weasley descended on Harry’s bed at an almost unnatural speed and the other four followed at a more reasonable pace, Hermione deliberately crawled up onto the bed next to Harry and lay down beside him, wrapping an arm protectively around his waist. Almost to Hermione’s surprise, Mrs Weasley did obey Dumbledore’s order not to question Harry about anything that had happened, and at Hermione’s own glares refrained from trying to mess with his bed-covers.

A few seconds later Madam Pomfrey returned with the sleeping potion and handed it to Harry, and he began drinking it. He’d only taken a few gulps before he began drifting off, just registering in his hazy mind that Hermione had laid her head down on his chest before the blissfulness of sleep overtook him, and he thought no more.

~HP~

Unfortunately, his sleep wasn’t going to last as long as he would have preferred.

When he awoke groggily some amount of time later, the only thing he noticed at first through the warmth and sleepiness and desire to drop right back off again was that Hermione no longer had her head resting on his chest. Instead, she was propped up next to him on her elbow, listening to something going on in the hallway outside the hospital wing. It was then that he finally heard the muffled shouts coming towards them that she, and the five Weasleys, who were still there as well, were listening to.

Then a second later Fudge, McGonagall, and Snape burst into the hospital wing yelling back and forth at each other about dementors, Crouch Jr, Dumbledore, and other things that his sleepy mind wasn’t up for taking in at the moment. But he did register that Fudge stormed up to Mrs Weasley demanding to know where Dumbledore was, as if she would have any clue where the Headmaster had gotten off to — unless Hermione's vague theory that they were all in cahoots about controlling his life was true, and she really would know exactly where he was and what he was doing.

Then Dumbledore did burst in, and through the ensuing shouting match, Harry gleaned that Fudge had brought a dementor with him into the castle, and it had kissed Crouch Jr, which was a problem because Crouch Jr couldn’t now give testimony to the fact Voldemort had been the one behind everything. Throughout the entire shouting match, Hermione diligently shielded Harry from the Minister's view, allowing him to pretend he was still asleep despite all the shouting going on, until Harry had felt it necessary that he try to tell the Minister the truth of what had happened that night.

Of course, that succeeded just as well as it had with Sirius the year before in that very same room, when he’d tried to explain then the truth of what had happened in the Shrieking Shack — as in, it didn’t work at all. Fudge still didn’t believe a word Harry said, still believed Harry was touched in the head (to put it politely), and still refused to listen to anything from any of them that went contrary to what he already wanted to believe.

After Fudge had finally stormed away making threats about trying to take over the school, Dumbledore began addressing all of the adults left in the room. Turning to Mrs Weasley and Bill, he asked, “Am I right in thinking that I can count on your family?”

At Mrs Weasley’s agreement, he gave them their instructions, and sent them on their way to begin the process of recruiting allies. Mrs Weasley had wanted to stay with Harry, but at Hermione’s glare and insistence that she was more than capable of taking care of her boyfriend by herself, and that it was far more important to start assembling for the war against Voldemort than it was to spend the night by Harry’s bedside watching him sleep, the Matriarch had finally relented and left with her oldest son to go tell her husband what had happened and the upcoming assignments they needed to begin preparing for.

Then Dumbledore sent Professor McGonagall to go collect Hagrid and Madam Maxime and bring them to his office, for him to speak to shortly. Madam Pomfrey he sent to take Winky from the fake Professor Moody’s office down to the kitchens for Dobby to take care of, leaving just Snape and Sirius in dog form still in the hospital wing with him and Harry and Hermione.

After having Sirius transform back into human form and forcing the two of them to shake hands, he sent Sirius off to alert several more allies, before turning to Snape. Their conversation was short and very cryptic, before Snape swept off looking even colder than normal, leaving Harry and Hermione wondering what it was Dumbledore had asked Snape to do.

Once Dumbledore had then bid Harry and Hermione goodnight to take care of his own part of the new war against Voldemort, the twins said, “We’ll leave you two to yourselves, but we’ll come by and visit sometime tomorrow,” before dragging their sister out of the hospital wing with them so they could be alone.

After exchanging a soft kiss with him, Hermione handed Harry the goblet with the remaining sleeping potion. Drinking the remaining potion as Hermione lay down against his side again and wrapped her arm around his waist and lay her head on his chest, Harry was out like a light before his head even hit his pillow.


	23. Chapter 23

When Harry awoke the following morning, he found that Hermione had shifted slightly during the night.

She was no longer merely lying stretched out beside him, but was laying half on top of him, one of her legs nestled between his and her curves pressing pleasantly against the side of his chest, her head resting on his shoulder like it belonged there. As she was still sound asleep, Harry looked around the hospital wing, trying not to disturb her. He saw that they were the only two in the hospital wing, with the exception of one bed that had the curtain pulled around it, which Harry assumed the real Mad-Eye Moody was recovering behind.

Relaxing back against his pillow, Harry played with Hermione's hair until he finally felt her stirring. Fully awakening, and realizing that Harry was already awake as well, Hermione leaned her head back slightly to look up at him, which put her lips too close to his for him to refrain from leaning down slightly and capturing them.They didn’t break apart until they heard the door to Madam Pomfrey's office open, as she hurried over to them to make sure everything was still good with Harry now that they were both awake.

Despite relatively little physical damage having been inflicted upon him and most of that having been healed already by Fawkes’ tears, Madam Pomfrey was unable to release Harry from the hospital wing for another day due to Dumbledore’s orders the night before, meaning Harry and Hermione had to spend the entire day in the hospital wing, trying not to go insane from boredom. Having absolutely zero interest in being anywhere besides with her boyfriend, Hermione never left his side that day, except for one short trip right after breakfast to go get them both books from the library to pass the time reading while they were stuck there, and when night arrived, once again curled up next to him in his bed to sleep.

When Harry was finally released the following day, he and Hermione walked down to the kitchens to get some food, Harry wanting to avoid crowds for as long as possible, and Hermione not particularly interested in them at the moment either. After that, they headed outside to relax on the spacious grounds, where they knew they could keep their distance from anyone wanting to pester Harry about what had happened during the third task.

~HP~

Over the following week until the Hogwarts Express was to take them all back to London, every time they did cross paths with people in the hallways, or entered the Great Hall to grab a bite to eat (always going at the least crowded times to avoid as many people as possible), most of their fellow students skirted around them (or specifically Harry) as quickly as they could, often avoiding meeting Harry's eyes, or whispering about him behind their hands to each other as they passed.

There hadn’t been any articles in the Daily Prophet actually talking about anything that had happened at the third task, only a tiny blurb saying Harry had won that hadn't even mentioned Cedric’s death. But as everyone in the castle had been there for the task and its aftermath themselves, Harry and Hermione knew they were connecting Rita’s article the morning of the task saying he was insane and power-hungry, to everything that they assumed must have happened in the maze given the fact it had ended with Harry winning and Cedric dying, leaving them all believing Harry to be highly disturbed and dangerous. From snatches of whispered conversations they did catch, they knew many of them were inventing their own wild theories of just how Cedric had died, most of which sinisterly involved Harry doing whatever it took to win the TriWizard Cup, and the thousand galleon prize and fame that came with it.

Worst of all though, perhaps, was Ronald Weasley.

Who had not only been reassured in his own personal beliefs that he’d held ever since Harry’s name had come out of the goblet — that Harry was an attention-whore seeking all the fame he could get — and was therefore making up stories that supported this long-held belief, but was also trying to spread those stories as far and wide as he possibly could in order to destroy Harry’s reputation before the Boy-Who-Lived could capitalize on everything that had occurred and gain even more attention and fame through it all. So despite the complete tragedy that had befallen Harry during the third task, and the mental and emotional pain he was going through after everything he’d suffered that night, Ron was doing his best to turn everyone against Harry, so he couldn’t become even more popular and have even more of a limelight than he already did.

Of course, it probably didn’t help that the redhead still didn’t know that Voldemort had returned, as Mrs Weasley, like always, thought her children too young to be informed of any such horrors, and so hadn’t told any of them. The twins knew, because the afternoon Harry had been stuck in the hospital wing, they had visited him and Hermione to try to cheer Harry up some, and Harry and Hermione (though mostly Hermione) had given the twins a very brief summary of what had occurred the night before, so the two of them would be informed and as prepared as possible for anything that might come. And Ginny had been in the hospital wing when Fudge had come storming into the hospital wing after using a dementor to murder Crouch Jr (or worse — kiss him), so she knew the general idea that He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was back. But Ron didn’t know anything that had actually happened, nor did any of the rest of the castle.

But even without Ron’s help, the castle was quickly putting two and two together and coming to the answer of five that Harry had murdered Cedric just so he could win the tournament, and therefore avoided Harry and Hermione almost as much as Harry and Hermione were trying to avoid the vast majority of the castle. In fact, the only person besides the twins Harry and Hermione spent any time with was Fleur, who like the twins they gave a quick synapsis of what had actually happened after the veela had been transported out of the maze, so she would know the truth and be able to go back to her family and prepare them for the upcoming war.

But in general, Harry and Hermione simply ignored everyone in the castle and their whispers behind Harry’s back, letting everyone think whatever they wanted to about Harry like the castle did every time something big happened involving Harry, knowing no amount of truth was going to break through the beliefs the castle wanted to hold about Harry, so it wasn’t even worth their trying.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas, everyone! Hope you have a wonderful season whatever your celebrations may be.

Finally, the last day of term arrived, and with it the Hogwarts Express back to London.

After saying goodbye to Fleur with promises to owl her over the summer, and then saying goodbye to Krum as well, Harry and Hermione followed the rest of the crowds down to where the carriages were waiting for them. But upon arriving at the horseless carriages, Harry saw that they were horseless no more.

Staring at the strange horse-like, dragon-headed, bat-winged, skeleton-ish beasts, Harry grabbed Hermione’s arm to stop her, and pointing at the creatures asked, “What _are_ those creepy things pulling the carriages?"

Hermione looked at where her boyfriend was pointing, before turning to look at the serious, and slightly creeped out look on his face, and then back to where he was pointing again, convinced he wasn’t trying to pull some kind of prank on her — it wasn’t really the kind of thing he would do, anyway.

“Umm, Harry? I can’t see anything. The carriages look as horseless to me as they have every time I’ve seen them. What do you see?”

Harry described the creatures to her in great detail, including the harnesses attaching the carriages to them. So with a look of curiosity, Hermione slowly stepped forward to the carriage shafts, and hesitantly reached out towards where Harry said the creatures were. Suddenly, she jerked her hand back.

“Well, there’s definitely something solid there, and really leathery and weird feeling, but I still can’t see a thing,” she said, looking back around at Harry.

“I can see them pulling every carriage, and there’s definitely one right where you touched it,” replied Harry.

“Okay then, so we know they’re real, and not some kind of magic making you see something that isn’t really there, but since everyone else is walking past them like there’s nothing, or at least nothing unusual, I’m guessing they can’t see them either. Which means it’s unlikely that there’s some magic affecting only me that’s keeping me from seeing them, either,” said Hermione, going into her lecture mode as she and Harry climbed into the carriage they were standing at, so they wouldn’t be left behind as the carriages in front of them started moving off down the road towards the Hogsmeade train station.

Once they were comfortably seated in the carriage, Hermione continued on, “But I’m not a magizoology expert by any means, and while I’ve read several books on the subject, I can’t think off the top of my head of anything these creatures could possibly be, that you can see for the first time now and most other people, myself included, still can’t see them. I’ll go through all my books again when I get home, but I’m thinking I’m going to have to get by Flourish and Blotts and find some more books to figure out what it is you’re seeing that I can’t, and why that’s so.”

Reassured by his girlfriend's belief of him, and her determination to find out what it was that he was seeing, and of course the fact she could clearly touch them even if she couldn’t see them, Harry didn’t feel like he was going crazy like he might have otherwise. He was still very puzzled by the creatures, and why they had either just started pulling the carriages or he could only just now see them, and also why everyone else couldn’t see them, but he simply wondered what the answers were and how long it would take his girlfriend to find out the answers, not whether he was starting to hallucinate and crack from all the stress he’d been through in the graveyard after the third task.

Boarding the train once they arrived at the Hogsmeade station, Harry and Hermione easily found a compartment all to themselves, as still no one wanted to be anywhere near them, and certainly not locked in the same compartment as them, even after Dumbledore had told everyone at the Leaving Feast the night before that it was Voldemort who had killed Cedric, and not Harry. And Harry was more than thankful for this. He preferred being alone with Hermione anyway, who’s constant presence in the week since the third task had helped him keep his mind off of everything that had occurred in the graveyard, and who had helped him begin to process some of what had taken place when he did feel up to talking about it all again.

So for once since he’d started attending Hogwarts, the castle’s routine shunning of him was turning out to be more of a blessing than otherwise.

~HP~

As the train started rolling a little while later, Harry saw Hermione pull out the morning’s Daily Prophet, which she hadn’t had time to read at breakfast.

“How long you do you think till Rita publishes something about the third task?” he asked curiously. “I’m surprised she hasn’t already. No way Fudge can keep _her_ quiet on a story like this, like he can the Prophet."

“Actually...I don’t think that’s going to be a problem for him,” replied Hermione, setting the paper down on the empty seat on the other side of her, and turning in her seat to face her boyfriend directly. “He obviously has a heavy hand at the Daily Prophet, and controls what they do and do not publish. Which means they won’t buy any story from Rita, or anyone else, contradicting the narrative Fudge wants to write. Which in this case is that everything is perfectly normal and Voldemort definitely isn’t back, despite any nasty rumors Dumbledore might be trying to spread to undermine the authority of the Ministry.

“And as there isn’t any other news outlet in wizarding Britain — Witch Weekly, the other periodical she published in this year, of course having no interest in publishing anything that isn’t celebrity scandals — and certainly not any news outlet that could pay Rita as much for a story as the Daily Prophet can pay her _not_ to write any stories, Rita’s not going to have any incentive to try to publish any story Fudge disapproves of. All she really cares about is money — not upsetting the status quo like she likes to portray, and certainly not truth — and Fudge is easily the highest bidder here. So she’ll gladly do whatever he wants so long as he keeps giving her enough money.”

“Oh.”

Harry sat there looking at his girlfriend sitting next to him, taking in everything she’d said.

“Guess I didn’t think of all that,” he finally said. “But it does make sense now that you’ve said it. Which means the truth is never going to get published, is it?”

“Never say never, bigger miracles have happened, but it doesn’t look like it will be spread anytime soon,” replied Hermione with a sigh, before shrugging. “But maybe Dumbledore and his allies he sent off are working on something to alert the masses to Voldemort’s return, and just haven’t done it yet. Who knows?”

Harry and Hermione spent the next hour discussing possible things Dumbledore and the others who knew that Voldemort was back could be doing to alert the people that Voldemort was alive and strong again, capture or kill the Death Eaters still walking free, and otherwise fight the war against Voldemort that had started with Harry’s defeat of the Dark Lord in their duel in the graveyard.

~HP~

After lunch, Harry and Hermione were both reading, when the compartment door slid open uninvited. And there stood Draco, Crabbe, and Goyle, looking even more insufferable and arrogant than ever before.

“So…” Draco drawled slowly, walking into the compartment like he thought he owned the place, looking at the couple with a smirk. "Potter's Dumbledore's favorite boy again.”

“Was there exactly some point at which he wasn’t?” asked Hermione politely, actually rather curious.

She couldn’t think of any time since Harry had stepped through the doors of Hogwarts that her boyfriend hadn’t clearly been Dumbledore’s favorite, and so had no clue what Draco thought he was talking about by saying that Harry was Dumbledore’s favorite _again_. Even when Harry’s name had come out of the goblet, the headmaster had automatically believed Harry when he said he didn’t enter himself or have anyone do it for him, so it’s not like Harry had lost his favoritism then even for a few days or a week.

But Draco ignored her, instead looking mostly at Harry, but also a little at her, and saying softly, "Trying not to think about it, are we? Trying to pretend it hasn't happened?”

“Pretend what didn’t happen? That Voldemort didn’t return from whatever half-life state he was in before?” questioned Harry calmly. "Uh…no — not really. Voldemort’s back, I’ve told all the adults in positions of authority that I can, and there’s nothing else for me to do about it right now. So no, I wouldn’t say I’m pretending it didn’t happen — there’s just nothing a fourteen year old me can do about it at the moment, now that I successfully beat your master in a one-on-one duel. After all, _Priori Incantatem_ went in _my_ direction, not his.”

Draco clearly didn’t expect this kind of response from Harry, despite the fact he hadn’t gotten a single rise out of Harry all year any of the times he’d tried to rile him up (or at least not since Harry and Hermione had started spending all their time with each other, and especially since they’d started dating), and once again it took him several seconds to regain his normal arrogance.

When he finally did, he sneered, "You've picked the losing side, Potter. I warned you — I told you you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember? When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like that mudblood!” Here he jerked his head at where Hermione sat leaning back against Harry’s side, Harry’s arm wrapped around her shoulder, a look of complete and utter boredom on her face as she looked at the Slytherin scum taking up space in their compartment. "Too late now, Potter! She'll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord's back. Mudbloods first. Well — second — Diggory was the first.”

“Which really, when you actually stop and think about it, doesn’t really make all that much sense, though,” commented Hermione conversationally. “Cedric was a pureblood, and yet Voldemort had Pettigrew kill him immediately just because he was there. So the whole purebloods, or at least those not actively opposing Voldemort — because Cedric wasn’t ‘on our side’ as you so eloquently put it, as to the best of my knowledge Cedric never did a single thing in his entire life to try to stop Voldemort from returning — but the idea of purebloods being safe, or at least _safer_ , from Voldemort, doesn’t really hold any water. For all Voldemort knew, had Cedric been given an opportunity to become a Death Eater, he gladly would have. But Voldemort had Pettigrew kill him without a second’s hesitation, never giving Cedric a chance to bow his knee to him once the tyrant had returned to a body.

“And Voldemort very easily could have, you know. Had Pettigrew bind Cedric like he did Harry, and waited until after he’d regained a body to see which side Cedric chose, and then killed the Hogwarts champion if he refused to bow. But despite Cedric’s purebloodedness, he didn’t. He just offed him without caring.”

“And also,” followed up Harry before the Snake could even wrap his mind around everything Hermione had said, “Do any of us here seriously believe that if I’d befriended you on the train ride up here, that I’d be any safer? That Voldemort would have let _me_ , the boy who destroyed his power as a baby, join the Death Eaters? Please — give me a break. There _was_ no winning side for me here, Draco, and you know it. I befriend you, and once Voldemort regained his body, he'd just come over to your house one day when I’m visiting and kill me there; or I don’t befriend you, and he tries to kill me first, second, and fourth years like actually happened. The only thing that was never an option, is where he lets me live."

Before Draco could even try to begin to reply to that, there came a cool voice from the corridor outside. “Are you bothering our friends?”

Draco turned and found the twins standing behind him and his cronies. Outnumbered and out-yeared, Draco wisely just gave Harry and Hermione one last contemptuous sneer, before heading back out of the compartment and to whatever hole he’d slithered out of, brushing roughly into the twins as he passed, Crabbe and Goyle following in his wake.

Once they were gone, the twins stepped into the compartment and closed the door behind them, sitting down across from Harry and Hermione.

“Causing you much trouble?” asked Fred.

“Nothing we couldn’t handle,” said Hermione. “So what brings you two to our humble compartment on this fine afternoon?”

“Bored, and wanted to come see if you’d care for a few games of exploding snaps,” answered George. “And also just to make sure Harry was still holding up okay.”

For the rest of the afternoon, the four of them amicably passed the time by playing exploding snaps and chatting, Harry and Hermione happy to have company that didn’t believe Harry to be the next dark wizard, worth more fear than He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named himself.

And as the conversation drifted into the TriWizard tournament in the midst of their chatting, Harry said, “You know, I think the oddest thing about this entire tournament, at least that we haven’t figured out yet, is why Bagman was so interested in trying to get me to win. And then never even congratulated me after I did — in fact, I never even saw him again after I entered the maze.”

“You know, we can actually help you with that one,” replied Fred gloomily.

“Turns out, Bagman owed a lot of money to the goblins, and in order to pay it off, placed a bet on you winning the tournament,” continued George.

“And _we_ found this all out because Bagman payed our Quidditch World Cup bet in leprechaun gold, and then refused to cough up, or even just return the money we’d bet, after said gold disappeared,” added Fred.

“But the goblins are as dirty as him, and claim that you drew instead of winning outright, so Bagman pulled a runner right after the third task, taking all hopes of us ever recovering our gold with him,” finished George.

“That’s terrible!” exclaimed Harry. "I’m so sorry. That was all your savings, and he just up and stole it. Too bad the Ministry doesn’t seem to have an actual police force to report crimes like that to.”

But Hermione had suddenly had an idea. Leaning over, she whispered into Harry’s ear, “You still don’t want your TriWizard money, do you?” When Harry shook his head, she continued, “Give it to them. Let them use it to start their joke business. You can’t fix what Bagman did, but you can help them out.”

So Harry immediately jumped up and dug around in his trunk, until he found the sack of gold Fudge had thrown at him before storming out of the hospital wing following the events of the third task. Turning to the twins, he held it out.

“Take it. I don’t want it, I have far more than I’ll ever use in my vault in Gringotts, and I really didn’t deserve this in the first place,” he said. “Consider it start-up money for your joke shop, four years worth of Christmas and birthday presents, whatever you have to to take it, I don’t care. Just take the money.”

Fred and George stared at him in disbelief for several seconds, before George hesitantly reached out to take it.

“You’re sure?” he said in awe.

“More than,” answered Harry. “I just can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner — or think of it at all, as you actually have Hermione to thank for suggesting the idea.”

“Thank you. And thank _you_ ,” said Fred first to Harry, and then to Hermione.

“Just glad we can help make the world a little brighter place,” replied Hermione with a smile.

~HP~

When the Hogwarts Express pulled into Kings Cross Station, Harry and Hermione hung back in their compartment for a while, to let everyone else deboard first.

They had made it this far avoiding most of the crowds who, despite Dumbledore’s speech at the Leaving Feast, still seemed to be rather distrustful of Harry, like he might murder them at any moment to further his fame. And Harry and Hermione saw no reason to push their luck now that they’d finally made it back to London and were almost free of all their fellow students for two months. They would of course have to face them all again after a summer of Fudge denying Voldemort’s return, but they would deal with that when the time came. Additionally, it was their last chance to snog for a while, and they weren’t about to waste that opportunity.

But eventually they had to exit the train themselves, and return to the muggle world from whence they came. Walking though the platform barrier, they found Mr Dursley waiting for Harry, along with Hermione's parents waiting on her a little further along the platform. As Harry stopped in front of his uncle, Hermione drew him in for one final hug and kiss before parting ways for the summer.

Letting him go, she waved over her shoulder as she walked off towards her parents, saying, "See you, Harry.”

~The End~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: I know I’ve said this on both of my last two long HP stories, but I really am working on a sequel to this for 5th Year. And I’m actually close to having the summer written. I’m thinking right now I’ll publish the summer as one story (it’s currently 32k words not entirely finished), and the school year as a separate story since both sections will be plenty long enough on their own, and so it won’t be six months before the sequel to this comes out, or I get distracted and never finish it.
> 
> A/N 2: Also, for anyone who’s said this story is too much just rewriting the book and not changing it enough (and yet still made it to this point to read this note), that’s definitely not the case in the summer between 4th-5th years — it changes a lot from canon due to Harry/Hermione being in a relationship. But also, also, they still go back to Hogwarts, because I’m not creative enough to completely write an entirely original story of them transferring to Beauxbatons or America like a few people have wanted — if you want that story, you’re going to have to write it yourself, I’m not that good.


End file.
